


The Verge of Tomorrow

by furiosity



Category: K (Anime)
Genre: Fix-It, M/M, Series Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-31
Updated: 2013-04-07
Packaged: 2017-11-23 01:39:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 54,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/616636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/furiosity/pseuds/furiosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six months after a certain snowy December evening, Munakata Reisi gets some interesting news. You could even call it life-changing news, but that might be a bit dramatic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Satellite (Prologue)

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into ไทย available: [ผ่านผันสู่วันพรุ่ง (The Verge of Tomorrow)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3036347) by [_DM_ (DarthMyrrh)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarthMyrrh/pseuds/_DM_)



> If you've read my fics for this ship before and prefer them in that tone, you might want to give this one a skip. I am 9000% done with all the Angsty McSadface; this is fix-it fic. There will obviously be some angst because tragic boyfriends are tragic, but that's not the point here.

Suoh's file was still on Reisi's home display.

A little orange dot near the bottom of the file icon flagged it as _pending_.

Pending what, Reisi wasn't sure. If someone asked, he'd have a hard time answering.

Pending investigation? By the time the crime scene people had fought their way through the horde of angry Ashinaka High parents, Suoh's body had been gone. Before leaving the island, Reisi had carried him to an untouched patch of snow beneath half-blackened trees, but when he'd returned to the crater to show the CSIs the spot, the body had been gone. The snow had melted in the meantime, and no footprints remained, but there were no traces of anyone being dragged, either. The final conclusion had been that Suoh's latent Red Aura had incinerated its former master, for unclear reasons.

It was fitting, in a way, for Suoh to leave no corpse at all; HOMRA's slogan had held true in that at least, except for the blood on Reisi's hands.

Orange dot, glowing dimly at him like an accusing eye. Half-heartedly rinsed bloodstains turned a dirty orange with time, didn't they? _Pending_.

Pending the disappearance of Reisi's guilt? Some days all he could feel was the _crack_ his blade's tip had made through Suoh's ribcage and the warm splatter of Suoh's blood on his sword hand.

He hadn't drawn his sword in the six months since, letting Awashima lead the few sorties they'd had to make. Those stopped being a weekly occurrence, what with HOMRA no longer under the aegis of a King. What was once the Red Clan had become just another shady bunch of miscreants; a headache for the local cops to deal with.

Kusanagi Izumo hadn't been happy when informed that Suoh's funeral would lack any part of Suoh. Awashima's report of their encounter had mentioned an accusation of body theft. _The sick puppies in your Science division are experimenting on him, aren't they?_ Reisi sometimes stopped to wonder what that phrase would have looked like handwritten -- would Awashima's hand have trembled? He couldn't blame Kusanagi; SCEPTER4 had both power and authority to do a thing like that. He could only hope the matter would not drive an even deeper wedge into the already strained friendship between his right hand and Suoh's former one. Enough friendships had ended that December day.

Reisi hadn't gone to the funeral. It had seemed callous for a killer to join the mourners for his victim. No one had witnessed the moment of Suoh's death, but everyone involved understood that the city's survival meant Suoh had died before the Red Sword of Damocles had fallen. No one could -- or would -- know which of the other three Kings had ended Suoh's life, but it was enough for Reisi that he knew.

He visited Suoh's grave often in the dark pre-dawn hours, weaponless. The words he spoke on those occasions disappeared into the graveyard's silence like rocks into a mountain pool.

Things Reisi had never said. _That one year we didn't keep in touch was a dark one for me, Suoh._

Feelings he had kept to himself. _You're all I want, Suoh._

Wishes only Suoh could have granted. _Take my hand, Suoh._

Would it have made a difference if he had said any of that before Suoh's death? Certainly not. If anything, such words would have driven them farther apart. Suoh had never liked letting anyone get too close, even before he had gained the power to burn. The power that had taken the last of him from Reisi.

Still, whenever he stood before Suoh's grave, he wondered -- what if? What if the day they'd met in secret next to the Ashinaka High shrine, the day Suoh had died, had also been the day Reisi let himself move just a little bit closer? If he had turned that bitter stand-off into his own surrender, would it have mattered to Suoh? Would he have tried to continue living, if he'd learned the only secret Reisi had ever kept from him?

It was delusion, of course: Suoh wouldn't have changed his mind. Reisi had been a hindrance before Suoh's plans, and the words he'd spoken and the things he'd done had been mere irritating distractions. And yet the idea that he could have saved Suoh wouldn't leave him, arrogant though it was. He had wanted to matter to Suoh, to matter enough that Suoh wouldn't have gone to his death. At least to matter enough that Suoh would have at least spared Reisi the role of the killing tool.

Now all that remained of Suoh sat in a digital file, pending.

Reisi blinked at the orange dot.

Pending archival? Yes. A slick non-answer that befitted his station. It was a good thing there was nobody at headquarters who would dare ask about Reisi's home screen.

"You should be grateful I didn't drag you by the ear like the ill-mannered brat you are!" Awashima's voice rang out behind Reisi's office door. "Captain, may we enter?"

"Please," Reisi said.

The door admitted a furious-looking Awashima and Fushimi, who appeared even more disgruntled than usual.

"Would you like tea?" Reisi offered, hoping that Awashima at least would decline. There was something uncannily terrible about all the azuki beans she preferred on her sweets.

"Thank you, Captain, but not this time," Awashima said. "We have disconcerting news. Fushimi was snooping through some American satellite footage and found something you need to see immediately. Show the captain, Fushimi."

Fushimi sighed heavily and glared at the carpet. He really was an ill-mannered brat; Reisi had never been sure why he was so fond of Fushimi.

"I swear, I _will_ box your ears if that's what it takes," Awashima snapped. She turned to Reisi. "I caught him trying to erase the evidence, sir."

"Erase it?" Reisi put his elbows on his desk and leaned forward. "It's not against SCEPTER4 regulations to hijack the American satellite feeds. What on earth did you see, Fushimi-kun?"

Fushimi extracted a thumb drive from his pocket and walked across the carpet to hand it to Reisi. "The pictures are on there, sir. All of them were taken between thirteen-thirty and thirteen thirty-six one week ago over London, England."

Reisi plugged the drive into his machine and called up the photos. Good quality, high-resolution shots, not like the stuff available to online mapping enthusiasts. The American feeds used supplementary footage from surveillance cameras for a good three-dimensional overview of each space photographed -- London was as packed with cameras as Shizume City, so the resultant images lacked no detail. No blurred faces here. In the first photo -- a top-view snap of a construction site of some kind -- he could even zoom in to the name on a passing German shepherd dog's collar. What kind of strange individual named such a fierce animal Pooky?

The second photo showed a tall man's legs clad in orange dangling out of the unfinished building's second-floor window, white sandwich wrapping covering his lap. Reisi recognised the left hand gripping the sandwich: the skin over the middle knuckle was waxy and thin, one shade lighter than the rest. _That scar. He got that injury on the day we met. New Year's Eve, almost eighteen years ago._

He must have made some sort of noise, for Awashima was at his side instantly. "Captain, are you all right?"

"I'm fine," Reisi said, waving her off as he swiped to get to the next image. This one showed the top of the man's head as he leaned out to talk to another construction worker in the street.

Next, a clear partial shot of the man's face as he craned his neck to stare right at the satellite camera's unseen eye. A white hard hat hid the man's hair, but Reisi would know that face among thousands.

Suoh Mikoto.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to my favourite pocket-sized pixycat for looking this over because lol champagne.


	2. Temple

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Munakata remembers the day he met Suoh. Fushimi and Awashima investigate, and Kokujyōji Daikaku issues an order.

_"Suoh Mikoto."_

_Reisi peers at the boy in the maroon parka and floppy-eared black hat. "I beg your pardon?"_

_"That's my name. What's yours?"_

_"M-Munakata. Munakata Reisi," Reisi tells him. He hasn't spent that much time outside his parents' house, except at school, but he's pretty sure people aren't supposed to just walk up and introduce themselves to others for no good reason._

_"Nice to meet you, Munakata. Now that we aren't strangers, let's find your parents."_

_"What on earth makes you think I'm looking for my parents?" Reisi asks, squaring his shoulders and drawing himself up. It's true that they have become separated in the crowd, but that doesn't mean Reisi was_ looking _for them or anything. He was just waiting for them to find him and thinking that maybe after this, they'll let him have his own cell phone._

_"You've been sitting on that tree stump and looking into the face of every passing adult for like twenty minutes now," Suoh tells him. "Unless you're a weredog who's lost its master, I'd say that means you're a lost kid looking for your parents." He grabs Reisi's hand and pulls him down from the stump. "Come on." Even through the wool of Reisi's mitten, Suoh's hand is warm._

_"I'm not lost," Reisi protests, but he lets Suoh lead him away from the crowd in front of the temple, past the shopping stalls and towards the Hill of Tears -- the centre-point of the grounds. "Where are_ your _parents?" he asks, pulling his scarf over his nose to warm it up with his breath._

_"My mom runs the soba stall," Suoh says, pointing behind them without slowing down. "My dad's supposed to have died when I was little."_

_"What do you mean, supposed to have died?"_

_"Mom says he did? But I read this manga where the main character's dad is a mega bad guy, and her mom told her good old dad was dead so she wouldn't feel bad about being related to him. So maybe my dad's alive and a mega bad guy."_

_Reisi doesn't know what to say to that. A lot of people who hate politicians think_ his _father is a bad guy. By now the two boys are halfway up the Hill of Tears staircase, and they're really not supposed to be here. "Um, where might we be headed?"_

_"Up top," Suoh says, gesturing toward the peak. "You can see everything from there, so we'll be able to find your folks." He nearly slips on a snow-covered marble step, but keeps his balance; his fingers tighten on Reisi's hand and then relax again as he barrels upward._

_"I thought no one was allowed up there," Reisi points out. He should really take his hand back, but it feels nice to be pulled along like this by someone his own size. It's like being in one of those feel-good movies full of friendship and adventure._

_Suoh glances back at him over his shoulder. "If they didn't want people using these stairs, they shouldn't have put them here."_

_The snow on the hill's flattened peak is undisturbed; the top layer has frozen a little, sparkling in the dying sun. The peak is ringed with a slightly raised, curb-like concrete barrier, out of which rise rusting, unreliable-looking metal railings shaped like the inverted English letter U. Suoh drops Reisi's hand and heads towards one of them; his boots leave craters in the snow, and Reisi feels a bit sad. It really was a pretty sight, all clean and dazzling. The warmth of Suoh's fingers seems to have seeped right into his mitten._

_Reisi sticks his hand in his pocket and follows, careful to put his feet into Suoh's footprints to avoid making more holes in the snow._

_Suoh steps up on the concrete curb, grabs a section of railing with his right hand and sweeps his other arm out to the side, looking for all the world like a king showing off his domain. "See? Everything."_

_Before Reisi can look for himself, the railing Suoh's leaning against gives a loud_ crack _and swings free as one arm of the U breaks, sprinkling brown flecks of rust into the snow._

_Suoh teeters, losing his grip on the broken railing, his left arm windmilling; Reisi sprints for him and grabs his forearm just as gravity pulls Suoh over. Reisi sinks down to his knees so they're pressed up against the concrete barrier and leans over as Suoh's upper body thumps against the side. Reisi's heart is jumping right out of his chest as he peers over the edge, afraid that what's clutched in his mitten is but Suoh's parka._

_But Suoh's there, and in this light Reisi can make out the colour of his eyes -- a soft amber. Suoh tips his head back into the bunched-up hood of his parka and laughs with pure delight, as if this is some fun amusement park ride and he isn't in danger of falling and rolling off a hundred-metre hill into a concrete plaza._

_"You're not right in the head," Reisi says, tightening his hold on Suoh's arm. His relief is enormous but his fear -- of letting go, of letting a person_ die _\-- is even greater, and for the first time in his life he understands what it means to be unreasonably angry._

_"You're stronger than you look," Suoh says._

_"Of course I'm strong," Reisi says, perhaps with more pride than he ought to show this strange, insane boy, but Suoh's impressed tone makes his chest swell with warmth. "I am a swordsman."_

_"Are you strong enough to pull me up, swordsman?"_

_Suoh's arm is twisted so his knuckles are right up against the concrete. Reisi shakes his head. "I could drag you up, but that would hurt your hand. It would be better to call for a robot or an adult to lift you." Out of the corner of his eye, he spots a familiar plumed hat in the crowd below._ Mother.

_"Forget it, my mom'll kill me if she finds out I went up here again," Suoh says. "I don't mind getting cut up, so pull. Hurry, before someone sees us."_

_Reisi pulls him up with both hands, trying his best to lift, not drag, but Suoh's knuckles still scrape the concrete, making Reisi wince in sympathy. Suoh doesn't react at all; perhaps it's adrenaline at work. Reisi slips a couple of times in the snow behind him as he hauls Suoh over the side, and collapses onto his back once Suoh's in the clear. The broken railing juts out over the edge like half a question mark._

_Suoh rises to his feet and inspects his bleeding hand, then squats and plunges it into the snow. "Thanks," he mutters. "That was a close one."_

_"No thanks necessary," Reisi tells him, sitting up. "You came up here for my sake, so not letting you fall to your death was the least I could do. Anyway, you should wear gloves when it's this cold. You wouldn't have been injured if you'd done that."_

_Suoh grins at him. "What are you, a grown-up? Lecturing all important-like when you're the same age as me."_

_Reisi gets up and pats snow off his backside. "How do you know we're the same age?"_

_"I've seen you at school. I'm in class C, same year as you."_

_Reisi's in class A, and he is sure he's never seen Suoh before. Then again, he keeps to himself at school; he hardly knows his own classmates, let alone people from other classes. "That doesn't mean we're the same age. When's your birthday?"_

_"Thirteenth of August," Suoh says. "Yours?"_

_"Like I'd tell you," Reisi replies, blushing. Suoh's older by almost two months -- a whole one sixth of a year. "Anyway, I saw my mother when I was pulling you up, so we got what we came for. Let's go find you a first-aid kit, you wannabe saviour of lost children."_

_They came to a dazzling expanse of new snow. They are leaving trampled boot-paths, broken metal, rust-specks, and blood-smears._ Humans just can't stand to leave beauty alone _, Reisi thinks, but it's eclipsed by the realisation that despite the carnage on the peak, despite his heart still pounding with remnants of fear, he's happy. He's just made his very first real friend. The kids he's met through his parents' friends have never counted as friends in his mind; they had to associate to avoid disappointing their families, and Reisi finds most of them difficult to like. But he likes Suoh, even though Suoh's not right in the head._

_And he can't help thinking it's auspicious to make a new friend on the verge of a brand new year._

"Captain?"

Reisi took one last look at Suoh's photograph -- an echo of the impish, devil-may-care face he'd seen laughing over the side of a temple hill in the heart of Shizume suburbia -- and turned to Awashima.

"My apologies; I was woolgathering. This is very surprising," he said. "Distressing, I should say. Out of the six unsolved missing-body cases in the Shizume City police files, I believe this may be the first one who turns up alive, and it's technically ours. I must confess I am rather disappointed that our department did not follow up to eliminate this possibility."

He was drowning his feelings in useless words, the way he always did, but neither Awashima nor Fushimi knew him well enough to realise that. Relief, betrayal, hope, and anger coalesced at the core of Reisi's mind into a confused, tight little ball that he needed to keep contained until he could be alone.

For the first time in six months, he opened Suoh's file. _Pending_. The slick answer Reisi had just arrived at was right out; this file wasn't pending archival any more. One couldn't archive files on the living.

 _Suoh is alive._ He quashed the thought; it was making him feel like scattering all the knick-knacks on his desk and hightailing it to the airfield, telling the first available pilot to take him to London immediately. It was making him feel like screaming with both grief and joy.

He found the financial data tab and glanced at Awashima, who was watching him work with a concerned expression.

"I'm following the money, Awashima-kun," Reisi explained. "If that man is Suoh Mikoto, he couldn't have ended up in London without using money somewhere along the way."

"What do you mean, _if_ it's Suoh?" Fushimi asked. "Sir? Do you think it might not be him?"

"Fushimi-kun, we'll have to have a separate discussion regarding the reasons you intended to erase these photographs," Reisi said distractedly, scanning Suoh's bank records. "But to answer your question, I am quite certain this is Suoh Mikoto. However, I have been known to be mistaken in the past."

"Will going through his financials really help?" Awashima asked, walking back to stand with Fushimi. "He could have had an account under a false identity; Kusanagi's got ties to lots of forgers and such."

"Please, sit, both of you," Reisi said. They pulled up chairs. "Suoh never liked all that cloak-and-dagger stuff Kusanagi Izumo is so fond of, Awashima-kun. He once said it was bad enough he had to remember his own citizen ID, let alone several. Ah, look." He turned on his screen projector and aimed it at the wall behind his subordinates, who turned in their seats to look at it. "This is a credit union backed by a foreign institution."

The records showed a positive balance of fifty thousand credits -- enough to buy a high-rise building in the heart of any major city in the world -- until the day after Suoh's death. Then it went down to zero, and every month after that showed the account closed.

"I need to ask Kusanagi about this," Reisi said, grabbing his PDA. "I have no way of knowing if Suoh did this or not."

"Wait, boss," Fushimi said. "What if that _is_ Suoh?"

"What does that have to do with Kusanagi? I'm not going to tell him about the photographs, of course."

"But if you tell him about the account, wouldn't that tip Kusanagi off? I'm guessing you don't want this information getting out." Fushimi nodded toward Suoh's photo on the top left of Reisi's screen.

"Fushimi makes a good point," Awashima said. Then, with a glare at Fushimi: "For a change."

Reisi sighed. Kusanagi would have to be told eventually, as Suoh's listed next-of-kin, but for now this was an internal matter. The body had gone missing on SCEPTER4's watch, and until they could verify the London man's identity and check his Weismann level, Suoh was technically still a King. Which made this an active SCEPTER4 investigation.

He changed the flag on Suoh's file from orange to green.

"Who else is aware of the satellite footage?" he asked, logging in to the warrants database.

"I've sent an eyes-only letter to His Excellency," Awashima said. "Hand-printed and in code, as per Protocol 368. Besides that, no one."

"Good. Keep it that way. The two of you need to go to this bank branch and seize their security camera recordings for that entire day; I'm sending the warrant to your PDA, Awashima-kun. I'm going to go through street camera footage and take a trip to the airport. Dismissed."

*

Twenty-four hours later, they had more or less pieced together Suoh's movements after his death. The reports of which had been greatly exaggerated.

Suoh had made it past all the Red and Blue clansmen, the Ashinaka High kids and their parents, and the reporters around the school island. Footage of the crowds had yielded no clues as to how he'd managed this; no sign of him on any of the tapes.

After that, he'd visited a clothing store, then a drug store, and checked into a mid-range hotel far from HOMRA's turf. He had emerged the following morning with black-dyed hair, dressed in a cheap grey polyester suit that made him difficult to find amongst all the salarymen. They picked up his trail again near the credit union branch -- he had emptied the account and took a taxi to an office building near downtown.

Reisi wasn't yet sure which of the fifty-odd businesses operating there was a front for ID forgeries, but one must have been: Satou Hajime, twenty-four years old, boarded a Hong Kong-bound plane at the airport three hours later. They would smoke out the forger, but they couldn't start until the Suoh business concluded -- once the details of the bust ended up on the wire, they might as well announce to the world that Suoh Mikoto still drew breath.

Records at the Japanese embassy in London confirmed that Satou Hajime had entered the country one week after the date of Suoh's death. Satou had a valid one-year work permit; the address he had given to the immigration office upon deplaning at Heathrow was of an unremarkable London hotel.

Fushimi was presently seated at a desk Reisi had had brought in for him, breaking into the hotel's system to see if he could pull a registration and maybe even some security footage, but that was just being thorough. They had enough proof of Suoh's non-deceased status; finding out his actual whereabouts, if necessary, would require international travel.

Reisi looked at his PDA, which for the moment felt like a thing full of Schrödinger's snakes: either harmless or poisonous. Any minute now, he would find out if he was going to see Suoh again soon.

The PDA buzzed. He snatched it up. "Yes, this is Munakata Reisi speaking." He was still using too many words whenever he spoke.

"Good work on this," the Gold King said. "I am sure Suoh knows what happened to Weismann. You must bring him to me. Spare no time or expense; tell no one else."

"Yes, sir."


	3. Airplane

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reisi remembers the day a friendship ended. Fushimi explains himself, and Suoh asks a favour.

_"Yes, sir." Reisi says and waits for Kokujyōji Daikaku to hang up the phone. A three-minute conversation has just changed his life forever. No, not even three minutes. A few words._

Munakata Reisi, the Dresden Slate has selected you to be the next King to lead the Blue Clan.

_The rest of the conversation was formalities._

_He's heard rumours of the Dresden Slate but always thought it was just an urban legend. A mysterious artifact that grants supernatural powers to exceptional people, who can then share this power with people they call clansmen. Exceptional people called Kings -- that one saying talks about the power behind the throne, but the Kings are the throne behind the power, the true decision- and policy-makers to whom politicians are but puppets. In his teens, Reisi asked his father once about these supposed Kings and their clans, but his father had sharply told him not to ask stupid questions._

_Back then, Reisi took it to mean that it really was an urban legend cooked up to explain the Kagutsu Crater tragedy, but now he understands that his father wasn't about to tell his only son that he was not the man of power everyone thought him to be. The true power coursed through Reisi even then, but he didn't know it yet. He first felt it last week -- an odd sucking sensation in his solar plexus, an emptiness like hunger, like craving something you've never eaten before._

_He wrote his criminal law final three days later, battling a fever that sometimes blotted out the world before his eyes. That night he dreamt of lightning striking him as he walked through shadowed city streets; currents of unimaginable strength lashed right through his flesh, but in the dream, Reisi walked on, heedless. The next morning he woke with the fever gone and the empty space inside his chest filled to the brim -- with what, he didn't know. Until now._

_If he wants to, he can call upon the Blue Sword of Damocles right now. Reisi looks around his room and decides against it. He'd probably wreck the house, and his mother would never let him hear the end of it._

You'll have to move into the city, _the Gold King said to him earlier._ There is a lot of work ahead of you.

_Reisi has mixed feelings about leaving Mother alone in the huge empty house -- his no longer relevant appointment to the county prosecutor's office wouldn't have required him to move -- but this is the way of the world. Suoh packed up and left for the city, too, didn't he? After he buried his mother, but still._

_A nice married couple now lives in Suoh's old house. Reisi greets them whenever he sees them, but he resents them a little bit, too, even though they didn't even buy the house from Suoh but from the real estate company Suoh sold it to. Reisi has a habit of blaming everyone but Suoh for just about anything. One day, that habit will bite him in the ass: putting people on a pedestal only works after they've died and can't disappoint you any more. Reisi knows this, yet still constructs convoluted excuses for Suoh's behaviour, no matter how bitterly he's disappointed. He loves Suoh, and he's still not given up hope that somehow, one day, Suoh might love him back._

_Reisi takes out his phone and sends Suoh a message:_

`Long time no talk. I've got some big news to share. Are you free tonight?`

_He stares wistfully at the phone. Thirty seconds later, the energy saving mode kicks in, and the screen fades to black. There was a time, not so long ago, that Suoh would return his mails within a heartbeat. Then he and Kusanagi started hanging out together, and sometimes Reisi could send a mail on a Friday and not get a response until he was about to turn in on Sunday evening. But at least there is always a response._

_Reisi sighs. Who's he kidding, not so long ago? He and Suoh have been drifting further and further apart since graduating from middle school. He can't blame Suoh: once they left childhood behind, their pace just never matched. Reisi lives for the next day; Suoh lives for today. Reisi likes books and documentaries; Suoh likes video games and action films. Reisi prefers to be alone; Suoh likes a crowd._

_The friendship born on a snowy New Year's Eve was but magical happenstance, but Reisi treasures it, and he believes that Suoh does too. He makes sure his phone's not in silent mode, pockets it, and walks out into the garden to give his mother the bad news._

_Munakata Chisato was almost forty to her husband's fifty when their only son was born, but she doesn't look a day older to Reisi now than she did when he was a brat. She gives him a cheery wave and goes back to battling an out-of-control hedge in the garden's northwest corner. Reisi's heart drops. Can he really tell her he's leaving?_

_"What's this?" she asks as Reisi strides across the lawn towards her. "I thought you just came out to wave hello; did you not find my note?"_

_"I just got in," Reisi says. "What note?"_

_"About your food. It's in the fridge, you just go ahead and warm it up; I already ate."_

_"I had lunch in town, but what is it?"_

_"Beets," Chisato says, swiping the back of a garden-gloved hand across her forehead and smearing it with dirt._

_"Beets?" Reisi asks, smiling slightly. He takes his handkerchief out and tries to wipe the dirt away. "Just beets?"_

_"Beets," Chisato confirms, yanking the handkerchief out of Reisi's hand. "Stop that, a little dirt's never hurt anyone. You look troubled."_

_"I have to leave home," he tells her. He's not allowed to talk about Blue Aura, though he suspects she's forgotten more about the whole Kings business than he will ever know; she was the city's police commissioner until after Father died. She was even involved in clean-up after the Kagutsu Incident. "It turns out my new job's more troublesome than I thought. They want me to move to the city."_

_"Oh good," Chisato says, perfectly cheerful. "Now I can start having all those wild parties at the house, finally."_

_Reisi rolls his eyes. "Mother."_

_"What? I'm looking on the bright side." She tugged her straw hat down a bit to hide her eyes. "Sure, it'll be lonely without you, but ever since Mikoto-chan moved away, you've been like a dog who's buried his bone and forgotten where it is. It'll be good for you to spend your free time with young people again."_

_"This has nothing to do with Suoh, or any young people," Reisi insists. "It's for work, and I'm not going to have any free time. I really don't want to leave you alone."_

_His phone buzzes, and Reisi can't snatch it out of his pocket fast enough. "Sorry."_

`Just come by the bar whenever you want. - Suoh`

_Attached to the message is a set of GPS coordinates to a spot in the heart of the city. Reisi feeds them to the map application, notes the next train that'll take him downtown, and pulls up a street view photo of a Western-style building with a corner entrance. Above the entrance is a large embossed sign reading_ HOMRA.

The bar _, Reisi thinks._ That's the place Kusanagi bought after high school. _Suoh's mentioned it more than a few times, but he's never invited Reisi there before. Probably figured bars weren't Reisi's scene. Which they weren't._

_He looks at the next train's departure time again. If he hurries, he can make it... but he's in the middle of an important conversation._

_"Go on," his mother says, gesturing at the house with the hedge clippers. "You have to leave, right?"_

_Reisi glances at her guiltily. Was he really thinking about running off to Suoh's place at a time like this? "It's not that important," he says. "Let's go inside and talk. I'll make tea."_

_"Nonsense," she says with a shake of her head. "Your eyes lit up like beacons just now, kid; you might think you're so refined with your law degree and all, but I'm still your mother and I can read you like a book. We'll talk tonight. I'll bake a cake, and you can make the tea."_

*

_As Reisi walks into the HOMRA bar's dimly lit, faintly smoke-filled interior, he spots Kusanagi behind the stand, chatting with a blond woman who's nursing a drink topped inexplicably with red bean paste._

_"Long time no see, Mr President," Kusanagi calls, grinning at Reisi. "Welcome to HOMRA."_

_The woman turns in her seat, gives Reisi a once-over, and goes back to her drink._

_A teenager with bright red hair pops up from one of the sofas on Reisi's left. "President?" he asks so loudly he might as well be shouting. "This guy with the glasses? President of what?"_

_"Pipe down, Yata-chan," Kusanagi says. "Munakata-san is an old friend of Mikoto's. We went to high school together."_

_"Oh, Mikoto-san's friend? He must be okay, then," Yata declares and disappears behind the back of the couch again._

_A light-haired man pushes a button on a gaudy jukebox sandwiched between two fake trees and turns around to look at Reisi. "President Munakata? What a surprise."_

_It's Totsuka Tatara -- Reisi vaguely remembers him hanging around Suoh when they were in high school. He hasn't changed much. How someone can go through life with such a genuinely cheerful smile, Reisi will never know. His own smile is a weapon or a shield, depending on the circumstances. Except in Suoh's company. Reisi doesn't smile for Suoh unless he means it._

_"I'd really prefer it if you didn't call me President," Reisi says, summoning up that politician's smile now. "I haven't been President of the Student Council for quite a few years. Is Suoh around?"_

_Kusanagi points to a door next to the bar. "He's napping upstairs, go on in. He said you'd be coming by, but we didn't expect you so soon."_

_Reisi nods, still smiling, and heads for the door. Kusanagi's overly familiar manner still irritates him, after all. He used to despise Kusanagi for stealing his best friend, but that private mental breakdown is in the past. As much as he would have wanted to keep Suoh by his side, Reisi can't deny that people are drawn to Suoh; that's not Suoh's fault. Still, he can't help but flare jealously over this bar and all the people in it -- people who get to see Suoh every day while Reisi's lucky if he can talk to him once a week._

_At the top of the stairs, he hesitates -- which door? -- but then he hears snoring behind the second door on his left. He walks up to it and knocks sharply. The snoring stops, and a few moments later the door swings inwards. Reisi's breath catches a little, as always, at the sight of Suoh -- rumpled hair, white shirt tight over a powerful upper body, carelessly open drawstring collar. Reisi wants time to freeze so he can just stand there and look at Suoh, but even Blue Aura won't let him do that._

_"That was fast," Suoh says, stepping aside to let Reisi into a cramped, dark little room with a bed under the window and an array of clothes littering most of the floor space. "Did you fly here or something?"_

_If Reisi felt unsettled by Kusanagi's observation that he'd arrived too quickly, Suoh's remark is almost enough to make him blush. He doesn't, of course; instead, he casts a disapproving gaze over the mess. "I see you still aren't housebroken."_

_Suoh lifts a fur-collared jacket off a chair, pushes the chair towards Reisi, and sits down cross-legged on the bed. "I see you're still as fussy as ever. I thought maybe the big news was that you finally got the stick up your ass surgically removed."_

_"I'd never do that," Reisi parries, taking the chair. "That would make you stop saying such charming things to me all the time."_

_Suoh grins. For a fleeting instant, his eyes are those of a boy hanging off the Hill of Tears and laughing into a white sky. "So you admit there_ is _a stick up your ass."_

_"If you say so, then so it must be," Reisi says. Blue Aura pulses restlessly in him -- why? Is there a relationship between strong feelings and one's Weismann level? There is still so much he doesn't know. He glances at Suoh, wondering if the sight of him will agitate the Aura further, and finds Suoh staring at him intently._

_"What are you doing?" Suoh asks._

_Reisi blinks. "I'm not doing anything." Why does Suoh look... hostile? He forces Blue Aura to recede so he can think clearly._

_Suoh shrugs. "Never mind, I must've imagined it. So? What's the big news?"_

_"First of all, hold out your phone. I owe you some cash."_

_Suoh raises an eyebrow but plucks his phone out from under the pillow and holds it out to Reisi, who opens his own phone and logs in to his banking app._

_They made the bet in yen, before credits were introduced as currency, and Reisi transfers the equivalent to Suoh's phone account. "You were right about the Kings," he explains. "So here's your five thousand yen. Adjusted for currency and inflation, of course."_

_Suoh makes no move to put his phone away and frowns. "How do you know that, Munakata?"_

_Reisi tells him about Blue Aura, about the final exam he probably failed, about the dream, about the conversation he had with the Gold King earlier that day. He doesn't look at Suoh as he talks; he's always found it difficult to acknowledge his mistakes outside of his own head, and seeing a person's eyes as you admit wrong is the hardest of all. Not to mention he's breaking the rules by talking to an outsider about this, but there's no way he would keep something this huge from Suoh. Besides, Suoh will never tell._

_"As Blue King, I will reform the organisation known as SCEPTER4 and start taking a serious look at the movements of the new Red Clan," he finishes. "Sounds like something out of a story, doesn't it?"_

_He finally looks up at Suoh, who's still holding his phone out, as though frozen. Instead of the usual lazy composure, Reisi finds dismay in Suoh's face. Just as their eyes meet, Suoh's expression turns blank._

_"I see," he says, gazing at the phone in his hand. "So that's what I felt."_

_"Suoh?" Reisi leans in to try and catch his eye. "What do you mean?"_

_"Shit," Suoh says, refusing to look at Reisi. "Damn."_

Is he _that_ shocked it's all real? _Reisi thinks, puzzled. But what was that he said about feeling something?_

_"Well, there's nothing for it," Suoh murmurs, so quietly that Reisi has to lean even closer to hear him. Suoh's head snaps up and his eyes meet Reisi's. They flare with challenge, the sort Reisi hasn't seen from him since their childhood play-fights in the Munakata family dojo._

_"This Red Clan you're supposed to bring to heel," Suoh says, carefully, every syllable sounded out. "You're in its heart right now."_

_"What?" Reisi gets up from the chair so fast, it topples backwards with a thump against a clothes pile. "What do you mean by that?"_

_"I mean HOMRA is the Red Clan," Suoh says, rising as well. "And I am the Red King."_

_Reisi takes a step backward. "You're joking, right?" The Red King and the Blue King were supposed to be enemies. Something about maintaining some kind of balance; he wasn't yet sure._

_Suoh reaches into his back pocket for a pack of cigarettes, shakes one out and offers it to Reisi, who declines. He hasn't smoked since high school._

_Suoh shrugs, sticks the cigarette in his own mouth, and then lights it with a spark from his fingers. "I'm not joking."_

_Reisi is so stunned -- by Suoh's calm attitude and by his having just_ produced fire from his bare hands _\-- that he forgets to think about what he's saying. "Since when? Since when have you been -- this?"_

_Suoh exhales smoke, lowers his eyelids. "Some years. I haven't been counting."_

_"You never told me," Reisi blurts out, immediately wishing he could take it back, wishing he had built up some kind of defense against Suoh, wishing he hadn't trusted him so completely._

_Suoh glances at him with horrible amusement in his eyes. "Don't give me that look like I've betrayed you or some other sentimental shit. What do you take me for, your boyfriend?"_

_Reisi swallows and finds a painful lump in his throat. "I took you for a friend," he says. It's the last time he'll ever be honest with Suoh Mikoto. The politician's smile is on his face already: a shield. "Thank you very kindly for sparing the time to meet with me on such short notice, and for taking care of me for all this time. I will take my leave."_

_He walks out of the room and back down the stairs on legs that won't bend and leaves the bar without acknowledging Kusanagi's surprise at how short his visit was. He walks dazedly into the twilight, fighting the urge to look back. He wants Suoh to come after him, to try and stop him, but of course that's wishful thinking. They are enemies now, and as it turns out, they weren't friends, either._

_What was that Reisi thought earlier, about his living for the next day? What a laugh. When it came to Suoh, Reisi has been living in the past. The friendship didn't end today; it ended long ago. Reisi was just too caught up in his feelings to notice._

Reisi blinked at the Strain activity report, which had fallen from his hands into his lap and startled him.

 _That's right. I may have tried to save him out of friendship, and we may have patched things up on the surface before the Ashinaka incident, but Suoh was no friend of mine._ Reisi took his glasses off and set them on the coffee table atop a pile of reports he'd already gone through. The glasses slid a bit as the plane hit a patch of rough air. They'd boarded one of the Gold King's private planes about four hours ago; eight more to go -- Reisi wished he could sleep, but the reports weren't going to read themselves, and it wouldn't do to fall behind on work. Sighing, he put his glasses back on and noticed Fushimi staring at him from the armchair on the other side of the table.

"Is something the matter, Fushimi-kun?"

"I hate flying," Fushimi said. "How can she," -- he jerked his head aft, towards the sleeping quarters where Awashima had disappeared an hour after take-off -- "sleep with all this turbulence?"

Reisi put his glasses back on, remembering that he and Fushimi had things to talk about. Awashima's temporary absence would be a blessing in disguise; her hand was quite heavy when it came to Fushimi Saruhiko, for reasons Reisi didn't quite understand.

"You've never flown before, have you, Fushimi-kun?" he asked.

"No," Fushimi said with a rather grudging look.

"You see, Awashima-kun has had to fly quite a bit -- she's the one we send to track down Strains who manage to escape Shizume City. Regular planes aren't like this one at all -- there are rows of rather cramped seats and no way to relax. Even in the so-called first class, the accommodations are less than ideal, and first-class tickets aren't yet in our budget to begin with. So being on a plane with actual beds must be like heaven for her."

"Perspective, huh," Fushimi muttered.

"Precisely," Reisi said. "And now we have a chance to have a discussion about your behaviour the other day."

"I'm so thrilled."

Reisi smiled. "Please explain why you tried to erase evidence of Suoh's continued existence."

"Look, I thought it was suspicious from the start," Fushimi said. "The death, I mean. Because of the missing body."

"The missing body?"

Fushimi clicked his tongue, but so softly that Reisi couldn't be sure if it was intentionally disrespectful. "No corpse means you can't prove someone died. Don't you watch movies, boss?"

"Can't say that I've got time to go to the cinema," Reisi said with a slight grin.

Fushimi's eyes widened, making him look uncharacteristically guileless. "What about DVD movies?"

"I haven't got a DVD player," Reisi confessed. "On the rare occasion that I'm at home, I watch the news."

"You must be fun at parties."

Reisi chuckled. "Depends on the party."

"Anyway, I knew he wasn't dead. So I guess I was looking for him, just to make sure. For myself. Then I found him."

"I'm with you so far," Reisi said, getting up. "Would you like something to drink?"

"No, thanks," Fushimi said, looking surprised. He was only a few years younger than Reisi but his way of looking at the world and the people in it was surprisingly childlike: he was undoubtedly surprised that his superior officer, to whom Fushimi refused to defer, would offer to fetch _him_ a drink. And yet in other ways, Fushimi was extremely mature. Perhaps this was why Reisi was so fond of him: Fushimi was a puzzle in human form.

Reisi selected a can of black coffee from the refrigerator by the bar and went back to his seat. "Please continue."

"Like I said, I wanted to make sure he wasn't dead -- for myself. Once I made sure, I figured he might as well stay dead."

Reisi drank half the coffee in one go. "Why did you decide that?"

"It wasn't because he took care of me once," Fushimi said quickly. "Don't think it was."

"I wouldn't dream of it."

"I just thought, the man took pains to pretend he was dead. I mean, he can't just go back to HOMRA and business as usual -- most of those guys only hung around him because he was the strongest, and now he's just a guy. I wouldn't want to go back if I were him."

Reisi leaned forward. "Do you think his wishes are more important than those of the people he left behind?"

"I don't care about the people he left behind," Fushimi said, challenging notes in his voice. "They can all rot, except-- uh, nothing."

"Except?"

Fushimi looked panicked for a moment, then his eyes lit up. "Except you, I guess."

He was lying, obviously, but Reisi decided Fushimi's reasons for that lie were too personal to ask about. "Me?" he asked instead. "What on earth makes you think I've been left behind by Suoh?"

"I know you were his friend," Fushimi said. "That day you came to HOMRA, I was right next door. I heard you downstairs, and I heard your conversation with Suoh."

Reisi scratched his nose to keep his chagrined expression hidden. Fushimi's habitual insubordination and rudeness had had a rather simple explanation all along: he had heard, if not seen, his captain at his weakest. No wonder he was more likely to defer to Awashima. "Was that what prompted you to attend the SCEPTER4 recruitment talk the following week?"

"Yeah," Fushimi said. "Everyone hanging out at that stupid bar ran around yapping about friendship and trust, while their vaunted leader could take a shit on an old friend and then go right back to sleep. I was tired of their Shounen Jump crap anyway, and that was just the final nail. Suoh's a fucking hypocrite."

It was funny, how Reisi's chest constricted and his Aura seethed at hearing Suoh badmouthed, even after all these years, even if he deserved it. Hearing Suoh's choice summed up as _taking a shit on an old friend_ hurt quite badly precisely because it was true -- or, at least, Reisi couldn't think of a reason it would be false. Perhaps this was because he'd stopped making excuses for Suoh long ago. It also hurt to know that Suoh had gone to sleep right after Reisi's departure -- Reisi himself had spent that very long night sitting in his mother's garden and trying not to cry. And still he couldn't hate Suoh. A small, childish part of him still hoped that Suoh could explain it all.

But his interests would be served better if he let Fushimi believe he was just as resentful as Fushimi expected him to be, so he put on a satisfied smile. "Shounen... Jump?" he asked.

Fushimi rolled his eyes. "Weekly manga magazine. Friendship, victory, effort -- that kind of thing. Didn't you read it as a kid?"

Reisi smiled. "My parents didn't think manga was appropriate reading material. I believed them. But we've veered away from the main topic of our conversation. I still don't understand why you would go along with Suoh's presumed wish for keeping his whereabouts concealed. Logically, shouldn't you want to mess up his plans?"

"I'd love to mess up his plans," Fushimi said. "But I wanted him to stay gone even more than that."

Reisi nodded. "I see. Well, you may yet get your wish, Fushimi-kun."

*

Reisi had worn the SCEPTER4 uniform every day for so long that the plain dark suit made him feel exposed, even though the three of them had doffed their uniforms precisely to avoid drawing attention to themselves on the streets of London.

After landing, they'd gone to the embassy and commandeered a small office on the premises for their impromptu task force. They needed to get Suoh on the plane quickly and with minimal fuss; that required a little bit of research and planning. For all that Reisi wanted to march straight to Suoh's place -- which Fushimi found after six hours of reviewing street surveillance footage -- they couldn't afford to rush.

There was no Dresden Slate activity here except for the local Kings; Reisi had reached out for Auras and found seven. His Excellency had notified the British branch of the Dresden Slate Oversight Committee that the Japanese Blue King was making a short visit, so at least he wasn't going to cause an international incident. However Suoh had escaped death, he was no longer a King, so subduing him, if necessary, would pose no problem.

Now that they were standing outside Suoh's apartment building, Reisi felt a little dizzy. What kind of face would Suoh make when he opened the door for the 'DHL delivery guy' -- the English husband of one of the embassy employees -- and found Reisi and Awashima flanking the man? Fushimi was staying outside to guard the entrance.

Reisi took a deep breath, steadying his nerves. "Let's go. Fushimi-kun, we leave this area to you."

"Got it."

They took a ride to the fifth floor in an elevator so rickety it must have been powered by miracles. This did nothing for Reisi's composure. _It would be fairly ironic if we plummeted to our deaths because of a mechanical malfunction just as we're about to reach our goal._

The corridor of Suoh's apartment floor was carpeted with the ugliest shade of purple Reisi had ever seen; the place smelled like onions just beginning to rot. Why would Suoh, with his considerable wealth, choose to live in a dump like this?

There was no peep-hole on Suoh's apartment door, which made things much simpler. Harold, the 'DHL delivery guy', rang the doorbell.

"Who is it?" came Suoh's voice from behind the door, his English as thickly accented as Reisi remembered from the days he'd tried to tutor Suoh. The sound of Suoh's voice sent a new volley of dread and anticipation through him.

"Delivery for Mr, uh, Say-toe?" Harold said, using a nasal voice for some reason. Reisi suppressed a genuinely appreciative smile. Harold spoke decent Japanese, so deliberately mispronouncing Suoh's fake surname was a nice touch. Authentic.

The door opened. Harold stepped back fluidly as Reisi moved into the doorway. Suoh wore a pair of paint-splattered overalls and a blue workshirt; the interior smelled like fresh paint.

Suoh's eyes widened as he shrank away a step. Then he heaved a sigh. "I should've known."

"Is this how you greet old friends who've taken the trouble to visit you after your death?" Reisi asked, his shield of a smile firmly in place. The days that he couldn't control himself around Suoh were long gone, so though all he wanted was to crush Suoh in an embrace and then wring his neck, he remained still; even his eyes didn't shift.

Suoh nodded a greeting to Awashima and looked back at Reisi. "Gallows humour doesn't suit you, Munakata. What do you want with me?"

Reisi kept on smiling. "I'm afraid we're going to ask you to come with us, Suoh. A rather important person would like to have a word or two, you see."

"Am I under arrest?"

"Something like that." Reisi really hoped that Suoh wasn't going to try and turn this into a lawyer thing. If this became a lawyer thing, it might even turn into a newsworthy thing, and Suoh needed to be on the news like Reisi needed a punch perm.

"You gonna cuff me?" Suoh's eyes gleamed with amusement.

Reisi didn't ask what was funny; he wasn't sure he wanted to know. "That won't be necessary."

"Can I get changed?" Suoh gestured at his outfit. "Maybe pack a few things, too?"

Reisi pressed a button on his earpiece. "Fushimi-kun, please come upstairs." He couldn't ask Awashima to watch a man get undressed, after all. "We need you to supervise our charge for a few minutes."

"Yes, boss."

"What did you call him for?" Suoh asked, staring at Reisi. " _You_ could supervise me."

"Just your face is enough to turn my stomach," Reisi said sweetly. "I might just be violently sick all over your freshly painted apartment if I have to see any more of you."

Suoh smirked. "Wow, I feel like I'm back in Japan already."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story was plagiarised by deviantART user [RieyaClievst](http://rieyaclievst.deviantart.com/). They have now removed it, however, their account continues to feature works (art, fic, and meta) created by multiple others and posted without attribution; several folks have left notes for them to stop stealing, but this person is just hiding/deleting those comments. If you create in the K fandom, please see if anything of yours has been lifted and report the theft to deviantART mods if you are able.


	4. Reception

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Munakata remembers the day he fell in love, Suoh remembers the day he didn't die, and some things are hard to say.

_"Feels like I'm back in Japan already," Reisi's father replies to something Reisi's mother just said, but Reisi has no idea what they're talking about. He and Suoh just came back to the house from the dojo when his mother dragged him off to take the Internet video call from the Netherlands, leaving Suoh behind in Reisi's room._

_Even the still-new tech marvel of being able to talk to a person on the other side of the world while looking at them, as though they're in the same room, is not enough for Reisi today. What if Suoh gets bored by himself and goes home? He's done that a few times lately. They've only just started middle school, but Suoh is slowly turning into a different person, one Reisi just can't keep up with._

_"So, Reisi, how's the new school?" his father asks._

_Reisi straightens his back and inclines his head. "I've already become used to it," he says. "We're on summer break right now, though."_

_"Did you get any tough summer homework?"_

_"I finished it all last week," Reisi says. "So it wasn't very challenging."_

_"What about Mikoto? Have you helped him with his homework?"_

_"He doesn't want to do it," Reisi replies with a smile. "He says he was hoping we'd be learning about more interesting things now that we're teenagers, but it's more of the same old stuff in more detail."_

_His mother laughs. "More interesting things like what?"_

_"Like dating and how taxes work," Reisi says. "Stuff like that."_

_"That boy's too mature for his own good," his father says with an indulgent smile. "You mark me, he'll make something of himself one day."_

_This is nothing new. His parents have doted on Suoh ever since the first day Reisi brought him home. In the books he reads, children always become resentful of any attention their parents pay anyone else, but Reisi likes it, because it seems natural to him that everyone should become fond of Suoh. For as long as they've been friends, Reisi's always felt like pushing Suoh out in front of himself and telling people to look at how wonderful he is. As long as they don't try to take Suoh away._

_"You want me to bring him in here?" Reisi asks, hopeful._

_"I would like that, but I'm almost out of time," his father says. "If he's over next time I call -- ah, but I'll be home next week, so it doesn't matter. I'll just talk to him then."_

_They say their goodbyes, and Reisi barely waits for the video feed to wink out before sprinting off to his room._

_Suoh's still there, sprawled out on his back on top of Reisi's bed, asleep. Reisi heads for him, intending to wake him, but stops a few paces short, realising that he doesn't want to wake him up yet. He really_ likes _looking at Suoh. Which is kind of a weird thing to think, but Suoh's so different from him. Suoh's growth spurt has come and gone, while Reisi remains unfortunately shrimpy. Suoh's been speaking in a deep voice for a year already -- it just got deeper over time; Reisi doesn't even remember any more what Suoh's voice was like before. Reisi's adult voice is still finding itself; he often squeaks like some kind of cellar rat. Usually when he has to speak to a stranger, too._

_Reisi listens to his heart pound and wonders if it's doing that because he ran here or because it's Suoh he was running to. He stares at Suoh's face, strangely unfamiliar -- he's used to Suoh with his eyes open, on fire, recounting yet another Great and Villainous Plan at a pace so fast sometimes Reisi can only pretend to understand why they're going to need chicken wire that's been dragged through an ant hill._

_Seeing him sleep peacefully like this makes Reisi realise for the first time that no matter how well you think you know a person, they can suddenly show you a side that you've never imagined they had. He sits down gingerly on the edge of the bed, gazing at the softened line of Suoh's mouth. Suoh's brow furrows for a moment, but he sleeps on._

_It's neither his thumping heart nor the vague wish to touch Suoh's face that make Reisi understand that what he feels for Suoh has become more complicated. It's the wave of relief that surges through him when Suoh doesn't wake. Reisi's relieved not because he doesn't want Suoh to see him like this, no. He's relieved because he hates the idea of ruining anything for Suoh, even if it's an impromptu afternoon nap. That's not something a boy like Reisi would feel for just anybody._

_Later that night, when Suoh's long gone, Reisi lies in bed and stares out at the stars beyond the open window. He's taking up only a small part of the bed, pretending like Suoh's still there on the rest of it. He wonders what it would be like to reach out with his hand and have Suoh's fingers curl around his._

_It makes him feel giddy. It makes him feel like a traitor. He'll never speak of it._

Reisi stood in the doorway to the plane's sleeping quarters, staring at Suoh's motionless figure on the bed closest to the window. They'd confined Suoh here for the duration of the flight back, just to maintain the illusion of something like arrest. Suoh's back was to the door, so Reisi couldn't see his face, just the back of his head -- shorter-cropped red hair, the ends still black from that dye job he'd done before fleeing Shizume City.

It was the third time Reisi watched over Suoh as he slept -- the first time had been that hazy late July afternoon when Reisi fell in love. The second time had been during Suoh's confinement at the SCEPTER4 jail, a day after he'd failed to convince Suoh to stop pursuing the Colourless King and step aside. During that visit, Reisi had not hesitated to wake Suoh -- had woken him quite violently, in fact. It had felt like a betrayal of his own feelings, even though Reisi no longer had the luxury of letting Suoh get his way. So he had come back the next day just to see if he'd feel the urge to disturb Suoh when there was nothing left to say.

He hadn't. And he still didn't feel such an urge now, even though there were plenty of things he wanted to say. He had deliberately avoided engaging Suoh in conversation since leaving his apartment. He'd thought he'd been prepared, that seeing Suoh's face on those photos and following his trail through Shizume City and London had let Suoh's continuing life sink in, but he'd been wrong. Now that he had seen Suoh for himself and breathed the same air, Reisi felt more lost than ever. _How do you face a man whose blood stained your hands as you murdered him?_

Reisi still didn't know. He backed out of the doorway, shut the door softly, entered the combination to lock it, and went to rejoin his colleagues.

*

Two Gold Clansmen escorted Reisi and Suoh into the Gold King's reception hall. There would be no showy planetary stuff this time -- as soon as the plane's wheels had hit the tarmac, the pilot had instructed Reisi to bring the prisoner directly to the King, alone. The old man seemed to have pressing reasons to find out Weismann's whereabouts, beyond mere curiosity, though Reisi hadn't had time to try and figure out what those reasons might be.

"Fourth King, of the Blue, entering," Reisi called as he walked to the middle of the room, where the Gold King waited behind a small round table. At his side sat a woman Reisi recognised: one of the elites who went around making regular people's memories of supernatural power-related occurrences vague. She and a team had assisted SCEPTER4 after the Ashinaka High incident.

"Nozomi-san," he said, inclining his head.

She nodded back without a word and turned her dark eyes to the Gold King.

"Show me what he knows," the Gold King said, pointing at Suoh.

"Understood." Nozomi turned to Suoh, unsmiling. "This will go faster if you cooperate."

Suoh held his hands open with a slight smirk. "No reason not to."

"Then follow my instructions."

"And for heaven's sake, sit down, both of you," the Gold King said, frowning at Reisi and Suoh. "This could take a while."

Reisi obeyed, still wincing inwardly at Suoh's casual behaviour. It was almost as though he was unaware that as a regular person, being in this place rendered him defenseless in every single sense -- physical and legal. Reisi was required to be here to ensure Suoh wasn't mistreated, but such protocols were mere technicalities. What did mistreatment matter when you were in the room with a person who could make you forget it happened to you? Not that Reisi was going to allow anything to happen to Suoh, but still.

Nozomi folded her hands on the table and stared at Suoh, who had sat down across from her. "My ability allows me to access long term memory and project reconstructed visualisations into the minds of those within a ten-metre radius.

Suoh narrowed his eyes. "Are you related to that other girl?"

"Other girl?" Nozomi's expression remained smooth, but her voice wavered slightly.

"Weismann's catgirl. He told me she could do that."

"So you _have_ seen him," the Gold King said.

"Not exactly," Suoh said. "Just let the woman show you everything. I don't like talking, it gives me a headache."

"To answer your question, no, I'm not related to that Strain," Nozomi put in. "Let us begin. Think back to the last time you interacted with Adolf K Weismann. I'll take it from there."

In front of Reisi's mind's eye, a silent film began to rewind with blinding speed. Then came a deep, all-encompassing darkness, through which a man's kind voice whispered, "Despite everything, you wanted to live a little longer, didn't you?"

Reisi saw eyes opening on blackened wreckage and falling snow. "Who are you?" Suoh's voice asked.

"My name is Adolf K Weismann," the other man's voice said. "I'm afraid you'll have to put up with me for a little while."

The scenes that had blurred backwards before began to unfold in Reisi's mind. Weismann had brought the Colourless King, in the body of Isana Yashiro, to face Suoh's judgement. At the moment of the Colourless King's death, he had fled and waited until Reisi's bloody work was done and he could possess Suoh, whom he'd brought back from the brink of death using his power.

"As I thought," the Gold King interjected at this point. "There was no other way he could have stayed alive."

"I have enough energy left to bring you across the water, but I've been too weakened to invoke my Sword of Damocles," Weismann's voice said in Suoh's memory-consciousness. "So after that, you'll have to do one more thing for me."

"What's that?" Suoh asked.

"You must travel to Hong Kong."

"Fine," Suoh said. "It's not like I have anywhere else to go."

"You don't mean to return to your friends?"

"How can I? I'm not King any more."

"You might find that your friends don't care about that."

"I care."

Nozomi clicked her tongue and fast-forwarded past all the things Reisi, Awashima, and Fushimi had already worked out: the disguise, the credit union, the forged identity, the flight to Hong Kong.

Once there, Suoh had gone to an address Weismann told him to give the cab driver -- an apartment with a single room, adjoining bathroom, and fantastical layers of dust.

"Now what?" Suoh asked.

"Now we wait," Weismann's voice said. "Get some rest. Though you might want to get rid of the dust first."

The pictures stopped.

"That was my last interaction with that guy," Suoh said.

"What happened after that?" Nozomi asked.

"He was gone after I woke up. I waited around for a couple of days, but he never came back, into my head or otherwise. So I left."

"Hong Kong," the Gold King said. "I thought I knew all of his little hideouts, but that's a new one. We'll need to reach out to the Oversight Committee there, see what they can dig up."

"Shall I wipe him, Your Excellency?" Nozomi asked.

Reisi tensed. She was talking about blurring Suoh's memories. That hadn't been part of the deal. _Well, to be precise, there was no deal._

"No," the Gold King said. "We might have to use him again."

Reisi spoke up. "Your Excellency, is SCEPTER4 to take this man into custody?"

"Not necessary," the Gold King replied. "If we need him, we can find him. Dismissed."

Suoh rolled his eyes as he rose, and Reisi hustled him out the door before the Gold King decided to take offense.

"I thought you gave up on your death wish," Reisi said through his teeth as they walked out into the grey afternoon. "I don't need to tell you who it was you were just in the presence of."

"He didn't impress me before and he doesn't impress me now," Suoh said, gazing out into the street's lunch-hour chaos. "If he wants me to lick his boots, he can try making an offer."

Reisi sighed. "You'll never change. Well, you're a free man, Suoh. Congratulations."

Suoh looked at him. "Coming from you that sounds strangely like an insult."

"Maybe it is, and maybe it isn't," Reisi said. "What will you do now?"

"Go back to London, obviously. If I hurry, I can still tell my boss I was sick with the flu or something; I'll only have been gone two days after all the flying."

"I'll take you to the airport," Reisi offered.

"Trying to keep me from visiting my people?"

"You wouldn't try to visit your people," Reisi said. "I was up there with you, remember? I heard what you said. You can certainly make your own way to the airport if you wish, however."

"You'd really just walk away?" Suoh asked. "That's pretty cold, even for you. Considering."

Reisi suppressed a wince. What was he to do? Suoh had just _said_ he wanted to go back to London. Was Reisi supposed to try and hold him back? To what end? They were nothing to each other any more -- or, rather, Reisi was nothing to Suoh; Suoh had made that clear. Repeatedly.

The things he wanted to say to Suoh were better left in the air around Suoh's no-longer-actual grave. All but one thing.

Reisi put on his best smile and shrugged. "Do you want the ride or not?"

*

"Have a drink with me before you leave," Suoh said as the driver pulled up to the curb in Departures.

Reisi looked at his PDA, which was still showing the next passenger plane to London that he'd looked up -- leaving in six hours. Reisi's calendar was clear for the rest of the day. Awashima had played it safe and booked the whole afternoon for the visit with His Excellency.

"You may return to HQ," he told the driver. "I'll take the train back."

"Yes, sir."

Ever since their conversation outside the Gold Clan's headquarters, Reisi had developed a growing certainty that he would really never see Suoh again. In which case there was one thing he needed Suoh to know, if only to close that chapter of his life. It didn't matter if it was selfish; surely Reisi had earned the right to be a little selfish after looking out for Suoh all this time. Saying it in front of the driver would have been too awkward, so he was glad Suoh had suggested a drink.

They found a mostly empty bar at the far end of the terminal, where they both ordered whisky on the rocks and sat at the counter not looking at each other.

"You remember that time we got into my mom's beer?" Suoh asked after a long, tense silence.

Reisi grinned against the lip of his glass. Their final year at elementary school. They'd got giggly drunk and passed out on the kitchen floor at Suoh's old house, where the nice married couple, whom Reisi had once unjustly resented, still lived. Suoh's mother had come home from some craft fair across town and found them piled on top of two crushed beer cans.

It hurt to think about it.

All of these recollections he'd been having since finding out Suoh was alive hurt Reisi like hell. Maybe he should petition the Gold King to wipe _his_ memories, make them into a blurry nothing that he could ignore. It had been bad enough living with Suoh's death. Now he would have to live with the knowledge that somewhere out there, Suoh continued not to care about him.

Honestly, it really pissed Reisi off.

"I have to tell you something," Reisi said. "I must admit I only went along with this invitation because of it."

"What's this, you of all people not wanting to talk about the good old days?" Suoh asked with a wry smile.

"I loved you," Reisi said. "In the good old days."

Suoh lost the smile, downed his drink, and grimaced -- at the bitterness or at what he'd just heard, Reisi didn't want to know. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I fell for you when we were thirteen," Reisi said. "That's all it means."

Suoh's jaw worked. "What are you doing telling me this _now_?"

"Not telling you was the one thing I regretted even more than I regretted having to kill you," Reisi explained. "Now I have no regrets. The way I see it, you owed me that much." The relief he felt was too immense for words; now he just wanted to be alone with the rage that Suoh had sparked by bringing up the past so casually.

Suoh stared into his empty glass as though trying to divine some meaning from the ice cubes.

Reisi got off the barstool and clapped a hand on top of Suoh's shoulder. "You take good care of yourself, okay?"

 _You always have_ , he didn't add. That would be petty. Suoh had taken very good care of lots of people besides himself: Kusanagi and Totsuka and that strange little girl with sad eyes. Even Fushimi. But not Reisi. Reisi had been just a fixture, a fire hydrant, no care needed. Break glass in case of emergency; if you push this button, Reisi will murder you even though it's going to mess him up forever. Reisi was a fool.

He wanted desperately to look back at least once as he walked away into the Departures crowd. But he didn't. Giving in to his desires would always end badly for Reisi; he'd accepted that a long time ago.

*

"I'm home," Reisi called from the entrance hall, but heard no reply. Mother must be in the garden again. It was really not good to be working outdoors in this heat and humidity, but he still hadn't found a way to convince her to hire a gardener. With all the upheavals of the past week -- learning Suoh was alive, seeing Suoh again, the final conversation with Suoh, finding the anger he had thought was long gone -- he'd forgotten to worry about his mother.

During Reisi's weekly visits, she pretended like she was following her doctor's advice about staying out of the heat, so her not being there to greet him when she knew he was coming was a bit strange. With growing concern, Reisi hurried through the house. It was bad enough that images of her passed out in the sun with no one around to help tormented him daily -- no matter how often he conjured those up, he couldn't just move back home. But he didn't know what he would do if he lost her too.

Reisi reached the back of the house and skidded to a stop so sudden that he almost lost his balance.

His mother sat on the back porch under an umbrella, sipping barley tea.

Suoh was in the garden, covered in dirt to his elbows, digging around a nasty-looking tree root.

[to be continued]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next weekend's update might be a little bit late as I'll be travelling for work.


	5. Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reisi remembers the disappointing way a long silence had ended, Suoh and Reisi dig a ditch, and then Reisi lands in it.

_"Well, look who it is," Reisi says as his unexpected visitor takes a seat across from him at the outdoor café. "To what do I owe this unpleasant interruption to my peaceful lunch break?" He's flustered, speaking quickly and using too many words, but he doesn't think this particular person cares._

_Suoh gives him a flat look. "Your guys have been putting the screws to my people lately."_

_Reisi bristles. They haven't spoken in a year, and Suoh doesn't even have the decency to make some small talk before getting down to business? Then again, Suoh is not likely to have been counting days the way Reisi has been. The thought's brutal clarity incenses Reisi, takes him past irritation and into anger._

_"I imagine you must be quite affronted that after years of no accountability, someone is finally taking a look at your little gang's illegal activities."_

_Suoh raises an eyebrow. "If you think HOMRA's just a little gang, your intel's out of date."_

_"And if you think the size of your operation is going to scare off the newly reformed SCEPTER4, you are badly mistaken." Reisi pushes his sandwich plate aside and signals the waiter. "You may take this away; I've lost my appetite."_

_"If it wasn't to your taste, I could--" the waiter begins, but Reisi waves him off._

_"I assure you my appetite was ruined by present company and through no fault of your establishment's. The check, if you would."_

_The waiter gives Suoh a look of politely restrained fury and walks off. Suoh doesn't seem to have noticed him. He gazes at Reisi with those expressionless eyes. "I make you sick now, huh?"_

_"Vomitous," Reisi confirms with a half-smile. He thought it would be hard to lie to Suoh, but it takes no effort at all. "Was there anything else you wished to discuss? I am rather busy, you see."_

_Suoh sighs heavily. "Okay."_

_He's out of the chair with a scrape of metal against pavement and walking away before Reisi can think of a rejoinder, and it strikes Reisi that he is the only one here who thought they were about to have a confrontation. Suoh Mikoto isn't interested in outsiders unless they can do something for him -- it's right there in the growing file SCEPTER4 has on him. Until just now, Reisi made the mistake of thinking that he, Munakata Reisi, could be special in that regard._

_He needs to break his lifelong habit of deifying Suoh, of expecting better of Suoh despite all contrary evidence. It is time to let go of the past. Yet as he watches Suoh's broad back disappear down the street, he can't deny his heart-thumping elation at having heard Suoh's voice and looked into his eyes. That is the trouble with emotional attachments; they bend to no will._

_But even the most stubborn of hearts is no match for a determined mind. Reisi will just have to fake loathing for Suoh until he convinces himself that it's real. He has every reason to hate Suoh, after all; he just hasn't wanted to._

Reisi forced his eyes away from Suoh's bare shoulders and approached his mother.

"Ah, Rei-chan! Right on time as always," she said cheerfully and patted the porch boards next to her. "Come and have some tea. Mikoto-chan, you too. Take a break."

Suoh gave Reisi a considering glance, then shook his head. "I'm all right for now, Auntie." He returned to attacking the soil around the root with a small spade.

For his part, Reisi obeyed his mother. "What's going on here?" he asked as she poured him tea from a sweaty-sided glass pitcher.

"You're the one who kept telling me to hire a gardener," she replied. "What's the matter, don't you like him?"

Reisi took a prolonged sip of tea while he considered his response. For one thing, he was glad to have concealed the news of Suoh's death from his mother. Reisi would never have anticipated their paths crossing, but he hadn't wanted to make her sad if he didn't need to. He had resolved to break the news next time she asked about Suoh, but she had stopped asking about him a long time ago, perhaps because she'd sensed that it was a sore subject for Reisi.

"It's not like you to hire the laziest guy in Shizume City, that's all," he said after setting his glass down next to hers and a third, clean one.

"Come over here and say that," Suoh snapped without looking over.

"A bit mouthy too, isn't he?" Reisi turned to his mother, who was smiling.

"Not a lot of folks will work for room and board," she said. "He's doing well so far."

"Room and--" Reisi stopped speaking and sighed. "Can you please just explain this normally?"

"Mikoto-chan came over the day before yesterday looking for you," Chisato said. "I gave him your address, but then we got to talking and it turned out he'd moved away from the city and didn't have a place to stay. I told him he could stay here if you wouldn't have him. He said you probably wouldn't anyway, so here we are."

Reisi watched Suoh's upper back muscles moving as he worked. When was the last time he'd seen such a sight? He hadn't let himself even picture Suoh in quite this much detail in a long time. Why torture himself with imaginings that would never come to pass? Yet there Suoh was, alive and healthy and naked to the waist, and all Reisi could do was stare and feel that old, familiar longing take root deep in his belly. The answers he really wanted wouldn't come from his mother.

"Why don't you go and help him out?" Chisato suggested. "It'll be faster with two. I'll get dinner started in the meantime."

"What do you want done?" Reisi asked as he began to unbutton his shirt.

"That maple tree's sent a root right towards the radishes. I've asked Mikoto-chan to move it aside and shore it up with gravel."

She carried her own glass into the house with her, but left the pitcher and the other two glasses. Reisi folded his shirt and placed it next to the tray, then grabbed a second spade from the rack under the porch and knelt next to Suoh.

"Guess your mother doesn't know about your job," Suoh said. "You're out of uniform."

"You of all people should understand why she doesn't know," Reisi said. He loosened the earth around an exposed section of root with his hands and stuck the spade in sideways, careful not to injure the root. "Do keep it that way, if you would."

"The guys used to say that you Blues slept in your uniforms," Suoh said. He tugged on the root, showering Reisi's spade with dirt. "Guess they were wrong."

Reisi glanced at Suoh's chest, at the place where his blade had pierced. Smooth skin. Anger found him again. _I spent six months having nightmares, and this guy doesn't even have a scar on him._ "What are you doing here?"

"Digging," Suoh said.

"Do not be obtuse."

"Quit using fancy words. You're happy to see me."

Reisi lowered the spade and peered into Suoh's face. It wasn't the stony, dull-eyed face of the Red King any more. Suoh looked the way he had when they'd fought for the last time -- eyes focussed and bright, a little smile on his lips. A face Reisi remembered well from childhood, full of mischief and barely contained laughter. This face had once been able to stop Reisi's thoughts and fill him up with joy, but now he felt only echoes of too many lonely nights. "Define 'happy'," he murmured, bending down to inspect more of the unearthed root. It was time to dig out a new path for it.

"You aren't?"

Reisi moved away from Suoh, closer to the porch, and stuck his spade into the soil flattened by decades of feet walking over it, generations of the Munakata family and guests. And friends. "One of the things I always appreciated about you was that you didn't play games. You said what you were thinking even if it got you in trouble," Reisi said. "So I wish you'd stop playing games with me, Suoh."

"I'm not trying to play games," Suoh said. "Everything happened exactly as Auntie said."

Reisi stabbed the spade into the ground, wrenching a hunk of earth loose. "Is that so," he muttered. "Continue digging along this line here. I'll bring the gravel."

They worked silently for the next twenty minutes, Suoh digging a deep, narrow trench and Reisi strewing gravel into it, laying the root down beside the gravel and packing the earth tightly atop it. Both of them sweated in the thick, humid air as the sun blazed down their backs.

"You've always called me by my family name," Suoh said as he watched Reisi bury the end of the root. "Even though everyone else calls me Mikoto."

"You've never used my first name, either," Reisi said. "I told you before, I'd say your name if you said mine." They'd got into a fight over it years ago, and both had insisted that the other had to say his name first. Neither would give in, so they continued using each other's surnames despite being practically brothers. "Don't you remember?"

"I don't," Suoh said. "I don't remember much of anything from before I gained Red Aura."

Reisi sat back on his haunches. "Lucky you."

"I made myself forget a lot of stuff," Suoh said. Then, after a pause: "I guess 'forget' isn't the right word. Disconnect from a lot of stuff."

"Why?" Reisi only wished he could disconnect from everything that bound him to Suoh -- if someone told him they would take those memories away, he'd gladly pay for the privilege. What was that about Weismann's little friend, that cat Strain...?

"Don't you know?" Suoh looked so genuinely puzzled that Reisi forgot what he was thinking about.

He shook his head. "What am I supposed to know?"

"Doesn't your Aura... consume you?"

Reisi blinked. Blue Aura, _consume_? He reached for it, though without his weapon to focus on, it came to his consciousness reluctantly, like a shy kitten. "Blue Aura's like the water in that well," he said, nodding at it. "It stays deep unless I bring it up." Reisi patted his solar plexus. "Right here."

"Huh," Suoh said. "So that's what Weissmann meant."

"Weissmann?"

"He apologised to me," Suoh said with a distracted expression, and Reisi had the sense that Suoh wasn't talking to him.

"What was Red Aura like?" Reisi asked, instantly regretting it. It was an awfully rude question to ask a King. But then again, he wasn't speaking to a King.

"A volcano about to blow," Suoh replied with equanimity. "I thought all of them were like that."

Reisi had thought that all the Auras felt much like his Blue. He tried to imagine a power this strong constantly threatening to spill out, and knew right then that he must have badly misunderstood a lot of things about Suoh's past condition.

"You spent all of your energy suppressing it, didn't you?" The words came in a carrying whisper.

Suoh nodded. "I thought that was part of the job. But Weissmann told me it was one of the Red's special properties. That anyone chosen as the Red King was doomed to die, either while trying to keep it contained or after letting it do as it pleases."

"What a great job you've done!" Chisato's voice exclaimed. Reisi jumped in surprise, lost his balance, and fell on his ass.

Chisato snickered. "Behold my son, the super important government employee."

A smile bloomed on Suoh's face -- a gleeful, conspiratorial grin that Reisi hadn't seen in a decade. _He's back_ , Reisi thought, letting his elbows slacken and his overheated back hit the warm soil over the tree root's new path. _He's back._ Laughter bubbled somewhere beneath Blue Aura, started and stopped like a trickle of snowmelt coming down a roof in early spring only to freeze into an icicle. The sound of laughter hadn't filled this garden since the death of Reisi's father.

Reisi sat back up, avoiding eye contact with Suoh, who hadn't come to Munakata Seiji's funeral despite being invited. Even though Reisi now understood that Suoh might perhaps have had a reason for acting like a complete asshole, nothing hurt any less. And wasn't that ironic? He had spent many years inventing excuses for Suoh's behaviour, and now that one actually existed, it didn't soothe Reisi even a little.

Chisato patted Reisi's shoulder. "Why don't you boys get washed up? Dinner's almost on."

She went back into the house, and Reisi caught Suoh's eye, nodding in her direction. "Go ahead and use the bathroom," he said. "I'll clean up out here."

Suoh's eyes brightened. "You're still doing that."

"Doing what?"

"Letting me go ahead and use the bathroom. You started doing it right around the time we entered middle school." He wore the look of a schoolboy surprised to have answered a teacher's question correctly.

Reisi adjusted his glasses. "I don't understand the nature of your complaint."

"It's not a complaint. I remember it was just weird that you suddenly didn't want to bathe in the same room as me, even though we always went in together before."

"I believe I had occasion to explain to you that I had developed certain feelings for you at a rather impressionable age. At the time, I didn't think it would be proper if I inadvertently forced those feelings on you."

"That's a really long description for awkward boners."

"Everyone's a critic," Reisi said as he headed for the well. "I'll be inside shortly."

Suoh caught him by the forearm. "I knew," he said. "How you felt."

Reisi's heart began to race. "I see." What was that supposed to mean? If Suoh had _known_ about Reisi's feelings, that made everything even worse.

"Do you still feel that way?"

Reisi freed his arm from Suoh's grip. "I don't see how that's any of your business." He continued to the well and pushed the button to activate the ropes that brought up the bucket. Right now, he wished the well had a hand crank just so he would have something to do besides stand uselessly and wait for the water to come up while trying not to panic. He'd told Suoh the truth because he'd not expected them to meet again. What was he to do _now_ , that Suoh was here and apparently interested in discussing it?

"What do you mean, not my business?" Suoh asked, catching up to him.

"I am not obligated to tell you anything about my feelings if I do not wish to."

"That's funny, you seemed pretty willing to talk about them at the airport."

The bucket arrived at the mouth of the well with a soft _clang_. Reisi lifted it out and gazed at the old wash-basin that had once stood outside the dojo, before they'd installed a proper outdoor washtub with running water. How many times had he splashed cold water into his face from that basin after watching Suoh disappear into the house? He'd wished for the courage to confess his feelings so Suoh wouldn't look so troubled every time Reisi refused his company. But if he had confessed, Suoh probably wouldn't have wanted to hang out with him again. And here Suoh was telling him that he'd known all along.

_Come to think of it, it all started falling apart from there. By the end of middle school, he hardly ever came over any more, and by the end of high school I was the only one who still thought we were friends._

"What I said at the airport was for my sake," Reisi said finally. "I didn't think it would matter to you. I apologise for troubling you, Suoh."

The water bucket was starting to weigh his shoulder down, so he carried it towards the basin, wishing he could disappear.

"That's it? That's all you're gonna say?" Suoh asked, following him again.

Reisi emptied the water into the washbasin and picked up one of the ratty cloths from the nearby rack. "I don't know what else to say. How would you like me to apologise?"

Suoh grabbed a second cloth and stepped up next to Reisi. "I don't want you to apologise. I'm trying to tell you I felt the same way."

Reisi, who had just bent down to open the spigot at the narrow side of the basin, froze. "What did you say?"

"I shouldn't say I knew how you felt. I guessed you did. Hoped." Suoh opened the spigot at the other side, soaked the cloth in the thin trickle of water, swiped it across the back of his neck. "But I was never sure, so I kept hoping you'd give me a sign."

Reisi let the water run over his washcloth for a few moments before closing the spigot and mopping the sweat off his chest. This was a dream; it had to be. An elaborate dream that stretched for days inside its own world, but when he woke up, he would be alone in a world without Suoh. Again.

"I don't remember much of it clearly," Suoh continued. "Feel like the memories of another person got mixed in with mine. But I do remember that at some point you started to avoid me a lot. I figured you'd noticed and were trying to let me down gently."

Reisi wiped his left armpit with a freshly-soaked cloth. Now that he was sure this was a dream, he was able to calm down. He just hoped that for once it would be a good dream, a sweet dream. "So you pushed me away before I could do it," he suggested, reopening the spigot. The water level in the basin was already getting a little low.

"The way you say it makes me sound like a needy asshole, but I guess that's the simplified version," Suoh said, hanging his wrung-out cloth back on the rack. "I'll get more water."

 _Don't bother_ , Reisi wanted to tell him. _This is a dream anyway; we'll never run out of water._ But he got distracted by the perfect dip that ran along Suoh's spinal column. Had that been what his back looked like? Reisi didn't even know any more, which parts of the Suoh in his mind were based in reality and which were fabrications. They had been apart for an awfully long time even before Suoh died. And now he was dead, but Reisi could still have dreams.

Suoh pulled a bucket of water out, but instead of bringing it back to the basin, he bent slightly backwards and emptied it over his head. He shook the water out if his hair and gave Reisi a sidelong glance as he lowered the bucket again. A meaningful sort of glance that dared Reisi to look, if Reisi was to judge -- and when it came to these sorts of dreams, he was an excellent judge.

 _A sex dream, really?_ Reisi thought. _Haven't had one in forever._ The fierce passion he had felt for Suoh had faded long ago. No one could sustain that kind of desire over years apart, over so many regrets, over a broken heart. And yet his pulse quickened and his throat felt tight and dry as Suoh returned with more water. His hair stuck to the sides of his face in dark wet strands, sharp as brush strokes, and Reisi kept thinking about the shape if Suoh's mouth beneath the water running down his face, and how that mouth would feel against Reisi's bare skin.

"So what about the job you were so anxious to get back to?" Reisi asked as Suoh filled the basin.

"Found a better job here," Suoh said with a raised eyebrow. He gave Reisi a puzzled look. "Why are you suddenly asking about that? Weren't we in the middle of another conversation?"

"Dead people can't be legally employed, you know," Reisi said. He was not going to let a dream-construction control the conversation. "You're lucky tax evasion isn't my department." He wrung the cloth out, stuck it back under the spigot, and mopped his face.

"You think I paid taxes before I died? That's cute," Suoh said with a slight smirk. He took the cloth out of Reisi's hand and splashed fresh water on it. "Your back's filthy from that ass-plant you did. Let me do it."

Reisi didn't protest. Any minute now, Suoh's arms would slip around his waist from behind, and Suoh would whisper his name -- Reisi, it was always Reisi in dreams; dreams were lovely -- and hopefully Reisi would get to enjoy himself a little. Maybe this time the dream wouldn't end in a fire-stricken clearing, snow on his face like tear drops, and the weight of Suoh's death on his shoulders, in his arms.

But Suoh just moved the cloth across Reisi's upper back, rather businesslike. "I'm glad Auntie needs help around the house. It's been a while since I did anything with these hands except destroy." He threw the cloth over the lip of the basin. "Wash that out yourself."

"Where are you going?" Reisi called after him, feeling a bit stunned. This dream-Suoh was a bit too much like the real thing.

"To eat," Suoh called over his shoulder. "I can take a hint, Munakata. We can talk when you feel like it."

As he vanished inside the house, Reisi looked around the garden, and the foggy unreality in his mind began to dissipate. When Suoh had been here, everything else -- the well, hedges, statuettes, trees, neat rows of vegetables -- had taken on dreamlike, ethereal properties, but now it was all coming back into focus. Real. The garden was real, and so was the washcloth Suoh had just handled. So was Suoh.

_I'm trying to tell you I felt the same way._

Was that real?

Reisi took his time rinsing his washcloth with the last of the well water. So what if it was real -- what did that mean? That if only Reisi had given Suoh an extra hint, all the heartache wouldn't have happened? if only Reisi had been brave enough to confess when they were younger, he and Suoh could have had something?

Reisi replaced the cloth on the rack and returned to the porch for his shirt. What did Suoh want from him?

_Asking might work._

*

After dinner, Reisi did the dishes while his mother went for her evening walk. Suoh sat on the porch smoking when Reisi came out to find him.

"I'm going home," Reisi told him. For all that he'd decided to ask Suoh directly, facing him made his resolve waver. Just as always.

Suoh drew deep on his cigarette and nodded at the pack next to the forgotten pitcher of barley tea. "Have one?"

"Not today," Reisi said. "In case I don't see Mother on my way to the station, tell her I'll see her next week."

"Munakata."

"And make sure she takes her medicine," Reisi continued. "An hour after breakfast -- or dinner if she skips the breakfast dose."

Suoh shook his head and gave a tiny chuckle.

"What's funny?" Reisi demanded. "She's all I've got in this world."

"I guess that answers my question from before," Suoh said. He looked up into Reisi's eyes. "I figured as much. It's been a long time since we had anything to do with each other. I just wish I could remember what it really felt like, you know?"

Reisi's chest constricted with disappointment and fresh fury. Suoh didn't understand _anything_ if he still thought that they'd merely drifted apart. And Reisi was fucking _done_ trying to spare Suoh's feelings.

"I do love you," he said, his mouth twisting. The words that had once brought him so much closer to the sky tasted sour now. "When you forgot about me, when you cut me out of your life -- I loved you. When you only thought me good enough to execute you, when my blade went through you, I still loved you. Are you satisfied?"

Suoh's eyes widened with shock. "Munakata, you-- it wasn't like that, I--"

"Don't bother," Reisi interrupted him. "It doesn't matter what you were thinking, Suoh. What matters is that you let it play out so that I'd have to cut you down. You were sick of living, but you wanted to die without harming any of your dearest friends. You _used_ me."

"You were the only one I trusted," Suoh said, stubbing out his cigarette in the ashtray and rising to face Reisi.

"Trusted me enough to kill you, yeah, I got that, thanks," Reisi said, squaring his shoulders. "Maybe when I stop having nightmares about it, I'll appreciate every nuance of your undoubtedly noble and pure intentions."

Suoh's eyes flashed. "I didn't _have_ any noble intentions. I didn't think you cared, Munakata. I thought you despised me. I thought you would be happy of the opportunity--"

"Bullshit," Reisi snapped. "I practically begged you to reconsider. I gave you options. _I said I wanted to save you._ "

"I thought you were just doing your job."

"It doesn't matter to me what you were thinking," Reisi repeated. He was so tired. Tired of keeping his feelings bottled up, of hiding behind a smile, of fearing what he was about to say. "I'm really happy you're alive, Suoh. I'm happy Weissmann saved you. You have a chance to do your life over now, but leave me out of it. I wish I could take these feelings and cut them out; I don't want them. They've brought me nothing but pain."

Suoh took a step backward. "Do you want me to leave here?"

"That isn't up to me." Reisi's hands were shaking at his sides, and for the first time in months, he _wanted_ his weapon. To put his hand on the hilt and feel Blue Aura leap into his grasp, to feel strong again.

Suoh reached forward and took Reisi's sword hand in both of his. "Forgive me."

Reisi had never heard Suoh say those words to anyone. A small, vindictive part of him wished he could refuse, but Reisi also knew himself -- he never _had_ kicked that old habit of putting Suoh on a pedestal. "I am sure that I will," he said softly, almost under his breath. "This isn't a grudge." Suoh's hands were so warm. Reisi pulled free. "Wait here," he said.

He went to his old study room, its walls lined with stacks of books and notes from over two decades of participating in an education system that taught him nothing about the world he lived in now. The power he possessed defied everything he had ever learned. Still, he kept all his old school things. It didn't feel right to get rid of them, useless though they were.

He rummaged amid the stacks and found it: a thick eight-subject notebook with _Organic Chemistry_ on the cover. The cover was a fake one: inside the notebook were letters he had written to Suoh, one a week, over many years. It had started the night he had lain awake imagining holding Suoh's hand -- unable to sleep, he'd crept out onto the porch and written his very first love letter in a kind of feverish stupor. He'd spent the following day -- Sunday, so Suoh had been busy helping his mother out with the shrine stall -- re-reading it and blushing furiously every time he thought of it. The following week, he'd gone to a stationery store, bought the notebook, and glued the letter to the first page. After that, every Saturday, throughout middle school and high school, he would write a single page of all the things he wished he'd been brave enough to say to Suoh.

He'd lived in a dormitory at university, and without the porch, it just wasn't the same, so the letters had become sporadic -- Reisi only wrote them when he went back home for breaks. The last letter bore the date Reisi had visited HOMRA for the first and last time. He had moved away after that, and though he visited his mother on Saturdays, he would never write Suoh another letter.

Reisi didn't think about the book much, but it had come to mind immediately when Suoh had said he'd wished he could remember what love felt like. Resisting the urge to revisit his sentimental teenage years, Reisi tucked the book under his arm and hurried back to the porch, where Suoh stood in the same spot, smoking again, his face a study in bored contempt. He was the Red King again, at least in appearance.

"You said you wanted to remember what it felt like," Reisi said, proffering the notebook. "I don't know what it was like for you, but the letters in this tell what it was like for me. I wrote them all right here on the porch. Every Saturday, right around this time -- while my parents were out on their after-dinner walk. Some of the winter pages might be hard to read because the ink kept freezing." _I'm babbling like some kind of used car salesman, for crying out loud. I'm the one doing_ him _a favour, so why do I feel like he'd be doing me a favour by reading these? Fuck._

Suoh looked at the notebook, his expression softening. "Is it really okay for me to read them?"

Reisi shrugged. "I wrote them to you. I never meant to send them, but I did hope that you would get to read them one day. Just don't take them at face value. I'm not that person any more."

Suoh took the notebook from Reisi and stared at the cover, then into Reisi's face. He looked so unhappy that Reisi averted his eyes. It was absurd that he should feel this guilty. He was doing the right thing.


	6. Kitchen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reisi remembers that birds don't just live in houses, Awashima learns something new, and Suoh makes an announcement.

_"Will the birds really come?" Reisi asks, sitting cross-legged on the edge of the back garden pond as Suoh hammers the last nail into the birdhouse roof. He's using a clothespin to hold the nail in place -- a good thing, too, because he's missed more than once. Reisi's like his dad -- no good with tools at all, so his job was to plan and draw the layout. Plus his mother will get upset if he injures his hands two days before his first piano lesson._

_"They'll come," Suoh says. "Even though it's a little crooked, it won't let in wind or rain."_

_"But how will they know it's a house for them?"_

_Suoh shrugs. "Instinct, I guess." He lowers the hammer to the grass. "There, all done."_

_"_ That's _where it's gone," Reisi's mom says, striding out onto the lawn. "What are you boys doing with my hammer?"_

_"Sorry, mama," Reisi says. "You were on the phone, so I took the hammer without asking." Of all the days his mother needs the hammer would of course be the day that he and Suoh decided to use it._

_"We built a birdhouse," Suoh lifts it up for her inspection._

_"Oh, my! It looks very nice," she says, peering at it with interest. "But Rei-chan, you know you are supposed to ask permission. What if a neighbour looked in and saw you playing with a hammer, unsupervised?"_

_Reisi hangs his head. "Yes, mama, I'm very sorry."_

_"It was my idea, Auntie," Suoh says. "Besides, we weren't playing around."_

_"I know you weren't," Reisi's mom says, and though Reisi's still staring down at the pebbles circling the pond, he knows she's smiling. "The neighbours might have a different idea, though."_

_"Is it okay if we put it up on the other side of the pond?" Reisi asks, pointing behind him._

_"Sure, but it's a little late to be putting up a birdhouse," she says. "Birds build nests when they want to have children, and the season for that is already finished. So there might not be any birds in it until next year."_

_"Oh," Suoh says with a disappointed look. "They don't just live in houses?"_

_She picks the hammer up from the ground. "I reckon they have no use for private property. They can fly, after all."_

_"Chisato-san, did you find it?" Reisi's dad calls from inside the house._

_"Yes, dear, I'll be right there!" She sticks the hammer into the large front pocket of her apron. "I'll come back and help you put up the birdhouse, so wait for me, okay?"_

_"Okay," the boys chorus as she hurries back inside._

_"You could've just blamed it on me," Suoh suggests. "I wouldn't have minded."_

_Reisi frowns in his general direction. "Of course I couldn't have. That would be a lie."_

_"Yeah, so?"_

_"What do you mean, so?"_

Overhead, a cloud moves on, and Suoh squints against the sunlight. _"So it would be a lie, what's the big deal?"_

_"We're inside the house, obviously there is no lying allowed," Reisi says._

_Suoh blinks. "You're not allowed to lie inside the house?"_

_"Of course not," Reisi says. They've been friends for almost a year now, but sometimes Suoh asks the most surprising things. "Home is the only place where you can be honest no matter what, even if you've done something terrible, so you should always tell the truth. That way your heart will be at ease."_

_"It's not like that in my house at all," Suoh says. "Shit, if I couldn't lie to my mom, I'd be forever grounded."_

_Unable to help himself, Reisi giggles at the casual profanity. "Just how much trouble do you get into? I feel sorry for your mother." He's always thought that it made perfect sense that your outside face didn't belong inside the house. To tell lies, you must wear a mask -- to do so in front of the people you love would be disgraceful. It hasn't occurred to him that it was a Munakata family thing, not an everybody thing._

_"Also, technically, we're in the garden," Suoh points out. "That's outside the house."_

_"Doesn't matter," Reisi says. "You can't reach the garden without going inside the house, so the garden still counts._

_"So whatever your parents ask, you have to answer honestly?"_

_"If I don't want to answer, I can just say I don't want to answer," Reisi explains. "Or I can tell half the truth."_

_"Yeah, but let's say they ask if you ate the last piece of cake and you say you don't want to answer, isn't it obvious that you ate it?"_

_"Cake isn't a big deal, though," Reisi says._

_"You take that back. Cake is serious business._

_Reisi rolls his eyes. "It's more like when Mom was appointed as the police commissioner, she didn't tell Dad for a week. He asked her why she was spacing out sometimes, but she just said it was work related. Which was true. But she didn't want him to know the whole story right away for some reason, so she didn't tell him. That's not lying, because you tell the whole truth eventually."_

_"What's a police commissioner do, anyway?" Suoh asks. "Is Auntie like the last boss?"_

_"I think so," Reisi says, glancing somewhat guiltily towards the house. His parents never ask what he does at Suoh's, but he suspects they wouldn't approve of video games any more than they approve of manga. Of which Suoh also has plenty, though Reisi's never touched any of it._

_When Suoh's mom comes to pick him up later and is dragged into the kitchen to be gifted with doughnuts, Suoh, shoes on and ready to go, tugs on Reisi's sleeve. "Can I follow the no lying rule, even though I'm not family?"_

You _are_ family, _Reisi wants to say, because to him it's true; Suoh is all he's ever wanted in a brother. But he knows it would sound cheesy and probably embarrass Suoh. "Sure, if you want," he says instead. "But didn't you say it was a drag?"_

_"Your parents can't punish me, so it's cool."_

Reisi opened his eyes and sighed at the ceiling. Did Suoh still remember the no-lying rule? Was that why he'd kept pressing Reisi for answers? In the past, Reisi could have easily dismissed the idea -- Suoh just hadn't been the wily, underhanded type; he did everything with heart wide open and spoke his mind, usually without regard for people's feelings.

But what he'd said to Suoh last weekend -- that Reisi wasn't the person who'd written the love letters any more -- could be said of Suoh, too. Reisi had never had a chance to get acquainted with the new Suoh, so all he had were conjecture and guesswork. Was he still in there somewhere, that brave, reckless boy who'd thought practical jokes too cruel but dick jokes the height of comedy?

What did it matter? And what did it matter if Suoh had insisted on an answer from Reisi _because_ he knew Reisi wouldn't lie to him? Reisi had already decided on a life without Suoh. Why was he getting so wound up? Why was he so concerned about Suoh's reasons for anything? Why couldn't he just go back to the aching loss he had learned to push back into the recesses of his mind? _That isn't up to me_ , he'd said when asked if he wanted Suoh gone, but the real answer had been _yes_. At that moment, he had wished Suoh would leave.

Now, in the soft pre-dawn light filtering through the half-shut blinds on Reisi's bedroom window, that felt like a lie.

He'd spent the past five days in and out of daydreams, finding himself wishing the weekend would hurry up with the mandatory half-day off on Saturday so he could see Suoh again. Suoh, not his mother. It filled him with a guilt he had never known before; as though he were choosing between his filial love and his feelings for Suoh, which did not appear the least bit interested in disappearing.

"I do wish I could cut them out," Reisi whispered to the ceiling fan, which seemed to decide that it was a command and began to twist lazily. _Technology._ Sometimes he shared his mother's suspicion of it.

Two days ago, he'd looked into the whereabouts of the memory-manipulating Strain who'd been running around with Adolf Weissmann before his disappearance. She was still running around, now with Miwa Ichigen's former retainer, but Reisi didn't see how she could help him. He'd have to let her see the past for her to erase it, but he would die before he shared any of this with anyone.

_Anyone but Suoh._

He looked at the digital clock display on the wall across from his bed. Six seventeen; he'd been lazing around long enough. He dragged himself to the bathroom and brushed his teeth, thinking about the message light blinking on his home phone. He'd seen it last night, but he'd been too tired to check.

While the kitchen robot fixed his breakfast, Reisi listened to the message, which turned out to be from his mother.

"Rei-chan, I hope you're not bullying Mikoto-chan into going back to school. I didn't ask him because he's always been very respectful of the house rules, and I don't want to force him into telling on you." Pause. "Don't get me wrong, I think it would be nice if he went to university, but he should decide that for himself. Ever since you visited, he's been spending all his free time with a chemistry book of some kind; he even asked to borrow a kanji dictionary. Call me and tell me what's going on, please!"

"Your food is ready. Eat it before it gets cold, you country bumpkin samurai," the kitchen robot yelled.

Reisi saved the message and headed to the kitchen. He always saved his mother's messages; sometimes he listened to old ones just to calm down. Her voice did that for him, even if her words didn't always.

His breakfast tasted like nothing; he kept thinking about Suoh reading the letters, even going so far as to get a dictionary to make sure he understood everything. Back in high school, Reisi had developed something of a love affair with rare, archaic kanji that he tried to use at every turn until even the Japanese teacher was asking him to stick to the government-approved list.

Reisi wished he could see Suoh's face as he read, even once. He regretted his impulsive decision to hand the letters over, but he had had trouble keeping his composure that day, hadn't he? He'd even tried to pretend like everything had been a dream. But now that he knew Suoh was actually reading the letters, he couldn't stop wondering about Suoh's reaction, giving him another reason to wish Saturday were closer.

*

"Mother, it's me."

"Rei-chan! Good timing. I've just sent Mikoto-chan to the supermarket. Did you get my message?"

Reisi was temporarily distracted by a vision of Suoh, huge and intimidating as he looked, pushing a cart around their local supermarket and sending little old ladies running for cover with just a glance. "You sent him to _our_ supermarket? By himself? Are you sure that's a good idea? He's kind of scary looking."

"Oh, he'll be fine. He's already gone twice before. Won't take any money, can you believe it? Says he's got plenty, but how much can he really have, coming back from... where was it that he went again?"

"Uh," Reisi said. "I'm not too sure." He had no idea what Suoh had told his mother.

"He's not in any trouble, is he?"

"Not any more," Reisi said. Then, quickly, before she could ask any more questions on the subject: "And by the way, I'm not trying to bully him into going to school, why would you even think such a thing?"

"Well, it just seems very strange that he started reading _your_ chemistry notes right after you visited. I thought about sneaking a peek at the book, but he keeps it in his room."

"It's your house, you can go in the guest bedroom if you want," Reisi said, because that's what he was _supposed_ to say. Really, he wanted to tell his mother not to look at the "Organic Chemistry" book under any circumstances.

"Mikoto-chan is not some lodger; he's like family," his mother said with steel in her voice. "Either way, I don't want to pry. If you're not putting him up to it, he must have his reasons."

"Yes, I suspect he does. Anyway, how have _you_ been? Every mail I send you, you're writing back with Suoh this, Suoh that. Have you been taking your medicine?"

She sighed. "Yes, thanks to you. Mikoto-chan's been telling me to take it in the morning, even though it makes me so sluggish. He says it doesn't matter that I don't want to do anything after taking it, since he'll do whatever. I feel like one of those dignified old ladies from the moving pictures, you know, the ones with butlers? It's disgusting."

 _There she goes again, talking about Suoh._ Still, she sounded happy, and Reisi _felt_ happy that Suoh had heard what he'd said about Chisato, after all. "Sounds like a good deal to me. I wish someone would wait on _me_ all day long."

"Oh, do you want to borrow Mikoto-chan? Well, you can't have him." She laughed.

Reisi sighed. "Mother."

"Yes, yes, I can see you rolling your eyes, or trying not to. I'd better let you get back to work. See you Saturday." _Click._

Reisi stared at the puzzle piece in his hand and tried to picture the half-completed puzzle on his desk, but it was no use. His concentration had suffered all week, and he just couldn't remember every aspect of its shape the way he usually could.

His intercom buzzed. "Captain, I'm coming over there," Awashima informed him.

"I'll be waiting," Reisi said.

A minute later, she walked in, but she wasn't carrying anything. Reisi had expected her to be bringing some urgent memo or at least some paperwork to sign. Awashima Seri was not one to come over for a bit of small talk.

"It's come to my attention that Suoh Mikoto hasn't left Japan," she said. "I was cross-checking the dates for my expense report, and noticed that Satou Hajime had bought a one-way ticket to London the day we brought him back, but the plane left without him."

"Please, have a seat," Reisi told her, nodding at the spare chair.

Awashima sat down. "Have you already looked into this, Captain?"

"Suoh is staying at my mother's house," he said.

It was pointless to try and hide it from anyone within SCEPTER4: all entrances to the homes of all members and their immediate families were equipped with overhead security cameras; anyone within the organisation could access the footage, and Reisi had watched and rewatched the moment of Suoh's arrival at the Munakata residence so many times, he knew Suoh was perfectly recognisable. That wasn't why he had watched it, but that was what he would say if anyone asked why he'd accessed it so many times.

Awashima stared at him, unblinking. "I had anticipated any number of answers, but that one wasn't even a possibility, sir."

Reisi smiled. "No, I suppose not. We were childhood friends, you see. My mother is still very fond of him."

Awashima's eyes widened with shock. She covered her mouth. "And yet you--" She stopped speaking, lowered her hand, and assumed a neutral expression immediately, but it was enough.

Reisi had long suspected that Awashima at least had known what happened on the Ashinaka High island; namely, she had correctly guessed who had slain whom. Of all the decisions he'd made in reforming SCEPTER4, he'd always counted Awashima's recruitment as a clear victory. Convincing her that a life of crime beside Kusanagi Izumo would have served no one's interests had not been easy. But in the end, Awashima had chosen justice and duty over love.

Reisi had much to learn from her.

"What do you intend to do?" she asked.

"For now? Nothing," Reisi said. "He's got no special power of any kind, so he's no concern of ours. The identity he's using is flagged in the system. If he ends up in any trouble, we'll take care of him as a favour to His Excellency -- Suoh's something of a witness to an independent investigation." There was no need for her to know about the Silver King, at least not yet.

"Are you really all right with that?"

Reisi shrugged. "If he keeps his head low, what's another Satou Hajime or Tanaka Goro? We've got a bigger picture to worry about."

"Shouldn't HOMRA be notified?" Awashima asked, looking down at her hands.

"Of his continued existence? I don't know, Awashima-kun. He seems to have reasons for staying away from them. It is perhaps not our business to interfere in someone's private affairs."

Awashima raised an eyebrow. "Are you offering your opinion or issuing an order?"

Reisi glanced down at the puzzle and saw where the piece he held needed to go. He slid it into place. "Please consider it an order to not get involved at this time."

"Would you consider speaking to him about it?"

Reisi's heart went out to her. She was being made to choose between duty and friendship, or perhaps still love, once again, and she obviously didn't like it one bit. "I will try," he said, offering her a genuine smile. "But it has been a long time since Suoh's listened to anything I had to say."

 _Five whole days,_ his mother's voice reminded him. _He listened to you about the medicine, didn't he?_

*

Saturday finally came, but when Reisi arrived at the house, his mother was watching television in the living room by herself.

"Where's Suoh?" Reisi asked after greeting her.

"Asleep. He was painting the back fence all day, and I think the fumes got to him."

"I see." The instant of panic Reisi had felt at the possibility of Suoh having left this place was discouraging. He was supposed to be trying to chase Suoh from his mind, not developing expectations to see him.

"Sorry, Rei-chan, but could you cook tonight? I'm feeling a little off."

Reisi looked at her drawn face and opted against haranguing her about getting a kitchen robot. "Why are you even apologising? Of course I'll do it."

He made curry, and by the time it was almost done, his mother wandered into the kitchen to offer help. He chased her off, but she came back, and he finally acquiesced to letting her set the table.

"Why don't you go and see if Mikoto-chan is hungry?" she suggested.

Reisi gave back her apron and made his way towards the guest quarters. He peered through a gap in the sliding door to Suoh's room and found him on his back atop a futon, eyes closed, the journal with Reisi's letters open on his chest with the cover facing upwards.

Reisi's heart began to pound. He was tempted to sneak in and see what specific letter Suoh had been reading, but he remembered that although Suoh could fall asleep anytime, anywhere, he was an extremely light sleeper; a fly landing in his hair could wake him up.

He was about to withdraw when Suoh spoke. "Munakata?"

"Sorry," Reisi said. "Mother sent me to see if you were hungry. I didn't mean to wake you."

"Can you come in here?"

"I'd rather not."

Suoh sat up with an irritated grunt. The notebook fell into his lap, and he put it somewhere out of sight. "Don't go running off," he said as Reisi backed away from the door.

"Wouldn't dream of it," Reisi said. He was retorting, but it was also true. Being with Suoh just made him want to stay right there, and that wasn't part of his plans. He had to find a way to see his mother without seeing Suoh.

Suoh got to his feet and walked out into the hallway. "You could've warned me some of your letters were. Um. Explicit."

Reisi had forgotten about that. He'd forgotten that sometimes he would write really detailed descriptions of the things he imagined them doing together -- those had peaked around the second year of high school, just as Kusanagi had taken Reisi's place completely. Oh, if he'd remembered writing those, he would never have given the notebook to Suoh.

He cleared his throat and fought the heat rising in his face. "Well. Those were my feelings, too."

Suoh's lips parted. "Were?" he asked, taking a step closer.

"Don't," Reisi warned him. "Just don't."

Suoh sighed. "You had some imagination."

"I still do," Reisi blurted. _Why would I say that? Why? I'm trying to get him to stay away from me!_

Suoh's brows drew together. "Are you taken?"

Reisi wished he could lie. "If work counts, then yes, completely." Suoh's face cleared, and Reisi wished he didn't feel so goddamned happy about all of this: Suoh being obviously affected by Reisi's teenage fantasies, Suoh trying to get closer to him, Suoh visibly relaxing at the news of Reisi's nonexistent relationship status. _I'm so fucked._ "If you're quite done asking intrusive questions, please come and eat."

Suoh gave him an exasperated look, but Reisi wasn't going to have it. He turned around and let Suoh follow him to the dining room, where his mother already sat waiting.

"Feeling better, Mikoto-chan?"

"Much better," Suoh said, taking his usual place at the table -- the one he had occupied so many times when they'd been boys. The place next to Reisi, wherever Reisi happened to sit.

"Auntie's curry is still amazing," Suoh said as they started to eat.

"Actually, Rei-chan cooked today," Chisato said. "So it's Rei-chan's curry."

"You taught me how, so it's still yours," Reisi protested.

Suoh put his rice bowl down, grabbed Reisi's shoulder, and turned to Chisato. "I'm gonna marry this guy. Is that okay with you, Auntie?"

Reisi's chopsticks fell out of his hand.

"Hmph," Chisato said. "Took you bloody long enough, Mikoto-chan."


	7. Bond

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reisi and Suoh have a conversation like real grown-ups, Fushimi dispenses useful work advice, and Awashima requests some sharks.

_The members of the student council are engaged in the vitally important task of gossipping about the latest celebrity match-up. The leaders of two rival boy bands have just announced their intentions to marry, and it seems the whole school is atwitter about it._

_Reisi, who doesn't care about celebrity news and prefers the non-confrontational approach to managing subordinates, is staring out of the window. He is waiting for an opportunity to interject and steer the discussion towards club funding, which happens to be the reason for this meeting._

_"Even you can't deny how cute they look together, President!" Mizutani says, thrusting a magazine in front of Reisi. On the cover, two airbrushed, grinning young men in stylish suits are holding hands beneath a white trellis arch covered in green vines. Reisi vaguely recognises one of them from some TV commercial or another, and he hates both of them because they have something he can only fantasise about, and they make it look so easy._

_"It's obviously a publicity stunt," he says with a shrug. "They'll look much less cute when they're divorcing in six months' time."_

_Mizutani rolls her eyes and puts the magazine down. "I always forget that beneath that cool exterior there's a terrible personality."_

_"Yeah, don't be such a cynic, President," Hanano says without looking up from his game. "You'll see things differently when you fall for somebody."_

_Reisi smiles peaceably and neglects to inform them that he sees things the way he does_ because _he's already fallen for somebody long ago. Somebody Reisi shouldn't have fallen for._

"What's the matter, Rei-chan? You look less happy than I thought you would."

Reisi glanced at Suoh, wishing he could figure out how he got from all but forgetting Reisi even existed to discussing marriage with his mother. _The letters can't have been that special._

Whatever Suoh was up to, Reisi was not going to be taken in that easily. He shook Suoh's hand off his shoulder and returned to his food. "Is it really okay for me to marry the gardener, Mother?" he asked.

She tilted her head to the side. "As long as you don't run away with him, I don't see a problem."

Reisi relaxed. This must have been some sort of joke they'd come up with during the week. "Running away was exactly what I planned to do, so I guess it wasn't meant to be."

*

After Reisi saw his mother off on her walk, he decided to leave without telling Suoh. He'd gone to say good-bye last time, and it had sent his whole week ass over teakettle. For all that the dinner discussion -- which segued into his mother explaining why autumn and spring were the worst seasons to get married, not the best as everyone thought -- must have been a joke, Reisi couldn't stop thinking about the way Suoh had looked at him outside his room, with fascinated focus, as though he had met a worthy opponent and was sizing him up.

Whatever Suoh had in mind, Reisi wasn't going to be interested. Or at least he wouldn't let it show that he was interested; he was _done_ following along with whatever Suoh wanted. He was done with hope. He had been for a long time even before Suoh's cruel endgame. Suoh not having died didn't change any of that. Reisi was just reacting so strongly to him because he hadn't had a chance to slow down and think properly.

Reisi had told him that he wanted to move on, so why couldn't Suoh let him?

_Because he still thinks like a King. Six months isn't long enough to stop expecting people to fall all over themselves trying to please you. Even if you never asked them to._

He was halfway down the pathway through the front garden when Suoh called out to him.

"I thought you'd try to run off."

 _Shit._ "I'm not running," Reisi said without turning around. "I have visited my mother, now it's time for me to return to the city."

Suoh caught up with him and stood in the middle of the path in front of Reisi. "You didn't mean any of the stuff you said at dinner, did you?"

Reisi frowned. "Obviously not. I'm really not sure what you're trying to do, but please don't drag my mother into whatever it is."

Suoh lit the cigarette dangling from his mouth. "I'm not dragging her into anything," he said. "It's just pointless to ask you if she won't agree, so I asked her first."

"Asked-- you were being _serious_?" _Was_ Mother _being serious?_

Suoh took another drag. "Obviously." His eyes searched Reisi's face. "I guess you don't want to get married, huh?"

Reisi blinked at him, speechless.

Suoh sighed. "Can we go see that memory woman?"

Reisi started to reach for his phone. "Have you recalled something else about Adolf Weissmann?"

Suoh shook his head. "I really hate talking. She could just show you everything I'm thinking."

"You might be cavalier with who is privy to your thoughts, but I am not," Reisi said, letting his hand drop. "Now that you've read some of those letters I foolishly gave you, I'd rather no one else encountered them. If there is something you wish to say to me, you'll just have to do it the old-fashioned way."

"Why was it foolish?"

"To give you the letters?" Reisi asked, a flush rising up his neck. "It's fairly self-evident, I should think."

"Because of the sex stuff?"

Reisi scowled. "Keep your voice down. And that's not it. I told you, I'm not that person any more. I gave them to you because you said you wanted to remember. Not for you to... to get ideas."

Suoh blew out a long stream of smoke. "Come back around with me. Let's talk."

"We've got nothing left to talk about," Reisi said, almost meaning it.

"In that case, will you at least hear me out?"

"If I do, can you promise you'll stop?"

"Stop what?"

"This." Reisi gestured at the distance between the two of them. "Everything. I meant it when I said I wanted to forget it all, Suoh."

"I know you did," Suoh said, nodding towards the house. "You've never told a lie in there."

 _So he did remember that._ "Will you promise?"

Suoh stared at the cigarette in his hand. "I promise."

Reisi unlocked the side gate and let Suoh lead the way along the stone walkway around the house. How many times had the two of them made this very trip in a happier past? Reisi's memories of Suoh as a boy had always been much clearer than any others -- seeing him walk along this path as an adult felt surreal: the shorter hair with the black dye still in it, the broad back, the cloud of tobacco smoke trailing behind him.

Reisi sat down on the back porch; Suoh sat next to him and put the ashtray between them.

Reisi adjusted his glasses and gazed out at the birdhouse the two of them had built as elementary-schoolers. With moss creeping up its sides, it was difficult to see amid the trees behind the pond. Wasps had built a nest inside the birdhouse the year Reisi graduated from high school, and no birds had lived in it since, even though the wasp nest was long abandoned.

"You remember when we built that?" Reisi asked, pointing at it as he turned to Suoh, but the question faded from his mind at the sight of Suoh's eyes: the same eyes Suoh had had last week, when he'd taken Reisi's hand in both of his and asked forgiveness, like a child desperate to avoid a scolding.

"I remember when Mom first got sick, coming here started to annoy me," Suoh said. "It... felt like a place from the past, I guess. From when Mom was okay. You kept giving me the cold shoulder, too, so I thought-- I thought, I don't really remember. It all got to be too much so I kind of... went away, in my head. I wanted to stop caring about stuff."

Reisi remembered visiting Suoh's mother in the hospital after the first surgery -- it had been the start of their final year of middle school. Cherry blossoms had danced outside the hospital room window as Suoh Ayane listened to her son tell her about the curling match she'd missed while in recovery. Suoh had never cared about curling, but he'd gone to the game for her sake. Reisi remembered feeling buoyed as they'd left; if she could smile so brightly with part of her stomach gone, surely they must have got all of the cancer out of her.

"When the cancer came back and they said she had six months to live, I didn't even care any more."

That had been at the start of their final year of high school. Reisi remembered the day well; Suoh had called him from the hospital and shared the news in that dead, bored voice that would later become his trademark as Red King. Reisi had rushed over, but Suoh had been long gone. He had sat with Ayane-san and listened to her complain about wholesalers driving up prices and muscling the little guys out of business. Her smile as he'd left had been just as dazzling as ever.

"She managed to hang on until you graduated," Reisi said. "She told me she would."

"You... talked to Mom?"

"I phoned her every Thursday," Reisi said. "That was the only day I didn't have club activities or cram school."

"I didn't know."

A memory floated to the surface, one Reisi hadn't recalled in a long time: a soft voice full of sorrow. "She asked me to look out for you." He squeezed his hand into a fist beside the ashtray. "After, you know. After she--" His voice cracked into a whisper. "And I--" Suoh's hand covered his fist, and Reisi jerked away. "Don't do that."

"It wasn't your fault."

"I know it wasn't. That doesn't make a difference. I promised your dying mother that I'd look out for you, and then I _murdered_ you."

"Don't say shit like that," Suoh said, his voice rising. "You didn't murder me. You said it yourself, Munakata: I used you to put myself out of my misery."

Reisi sighed. "We were talking about your mother."

"Yeah." Suoh lit another cigarette. "She was sick all the time, even before the cancer came back. I knew she'd die. Even after the first surgery, I knew. I thought I was being punished. I never had a lot of important things in my life, but they were disappearing. Mom was dying. My friendship with you was pretty much finished."

Reisi's mouth twisted into a bitter smile at the confirmation of what had caused him so much pain years after that bittersweet high school graduation. His fellow student council members had had it right all along; his personality was terrible. He had been so self-assured that he couldn't even see that he had lost a friend.

"After she died and I moved to Izumo's bar, it became even easier not to care. Nothing there reminded me of her. Or you. I guess I could've started over. Got grief counselling or something. Found somebody to replace you, I dunno. Then the Red Sword of Damocles came for me. You know the rest."

"More or less," Reisi agreed. The SCEPTER4 file on Suoh's history as Red King had been painstakingly assembled down to the very last detail by a team he'd handpicked. He hadn't contributed to it because the Suoh Mikoto he had known and the Red King of HOMRA had not been the same person at all.

"Weissmann said the Dresden Slate might choose people who have nothing left," Suoh said after a brief silence. "Not ones so desperate they want to die, but... people without a purpose."

Reisi stared at the moss on the birdhouse. Had he lacked purpose when Blue Aura had claimed him? He'd had _plans_ , certainly. Finals. Part-time law school while he worked for that pot-bellied chain-smoking prosecutor his mother had strong-armed into hiring him. Eventually adopting a cousin or two into the main family. His mother had accepted long ago that marriage to a woman was off the table. He would not live a lie inside this house or elsewhere. Plans.

"Purpose," he murmured. "What is that, anyway?" Did he have it now? Didn't he just spend most of his time reacting to whatever happened? A King did not need plans, certainly, and if he did, he could change them whenever he wanted. He had that power.

Suoh stubbed his cigarette out. "Beats me. Totsuka used to say that the purpose of my power was to protect my friends, but you were the one who protected them in the end."

"You're welcome," Reisi said dryly, and remembered his conversation with Awashima earlier that week. "Speaking of the former Red Clan, do you intend to go back? I don't mean to pry, but it strikes me as rather disingenuous that you and I are sitting here reminiscing about our failed friendship when your real friends are grieving for you."

"Don't call it failed," Suoh muttered.

"I'll call it what it is," Reisi snapped. "In SCEPTER4, there are exactly three people who know that you aren't dead. One of them is Awashima Seri."

"Shit."

Reisi sat up straighter and glared at Suoh. "I don't give a damn about Kusanagi one way or another, but I'm not so cold-hearted that I'd be able to look him in the eye if I happened to run into him. I'd wager it's far more complicated than that for both Awashima-kun and Fushimi-kun."

"I will go back," Suoh said, fiddling with an unlit cigarette. "I'm just not cut out for multitasking, all right?"

"Multitasking?"

Suoh took a deep breath and stuck the cigarette into his mouth. "Before I go back there, I have to square things with you. I came back because of you, Munakata."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean I'm alive because of you. When you cut me, I-- I put my arms around you, not to hug you or anything, just to keep standing. And I felt like -- shit, I wish I'd done this sooner. But I was dying. Nothing I could do any more. Nothing I could say. I died wishing I could have been with you. That's what let Weissmann bring me back. Not HOMRA, not Anna. You."

He lit the cigarette and turned away. Reisi stared at his profile: eyes half-closed, mouth downturned as though from unpleasant medicine. The thaw that had started in his heart the moment he'd seen Suoh staring at the London sky became a flood.

Suoh looked at him. "I agreed to take Weissmann to Hong Kong, but I was going to come right back and find you. I lost my nerve, though. I was sure you hated me, sure you'd be really pissed if I suddenly came back and tried to get in your face about, you know, about how I feel."

Suoh's cheeks were red, his eyes fever-bright. Reisi looked at the ground under his feet, the ground they'd just recently dug up together, not sure what to do with himself. His heart raced, making Blue Aura restless.

"I called the forger I used and told him to get me a work permit for anywhere, he got me the UK, you know the rest. I figured I had to have something to show for myself besides being a stupid kid with a superpower if you were ever gonna take me seriously. But you found me first."

"Fushimi-kun found you," Reisi said without looking up. "I wasn't looking for you."

"You know what I mean. And after you told me your feelings at the airport, I came here. When Auntie said you moved away long ago, I lost my nerve again, but I'm through with that."

"I'd say," Reisi said. "Talking about marriage, for heaven's sake."

"I want to join my life to yours. That's what marriage is about, right?"

Reisi made an exasperated noise. "Are you a little kid?"

Suoh didn't reply.

Reisi pressed his lips together and exhaled heavily through his nose. "I don't know what to say. Feelings aside, the bond we had is a frayed, pitiful thing now." He turned to look at Suoh.

Suoh's eyes met his. "Is there no room for me by your side any more?"

Reisi's heart gave a powerful lurch. He knew what he ought to have said, but what he ought to have said wasn't true. As long as Suoh claimed a space in his heart, there would be room for him in Reisi's life, be they friends or not. And after all this time, he had to accept Suoh's residence in Reisi's heart as a sure thing.

"Idiot," he said finally. "Start with that next time."

"I don't get it," Suoh said. "Is that a yes or a no?"

"That's a maybe," Reisi said. "I'm angry with you, Suoh."

"I know."

"I'll remain angry for a long time. Maybe forever."

"I know."

"Even so, you want to--"

"Marry you. I'm not going to say please go out with me, that's weak."

"You haven't said please marry me, though," Reisi pointed out, just out of a habit of being contrary. "Not that you can."

"I can too. Please--"

Reisi held up a hand. "Don't. You can't marry anybody, Suoh. You're legally dead."

"Crap."

"I can get the process started to... resurrect you, for lack of a better term. But the minute you're a living person again, your friends at HOMRA will know it. I don't need to tell you that Kusanagi's information network is quite comprehensive."

Suoh sighed. "If that's what you need, then do it. Let them find out. I will still deal with them later."

"You might want to give that a bit more thought," Reisi said. "I will give you an answer regardless, but two things need to happen first. One, read the rest of the letters. You may change your mind after you get to the end."

"I won't. What's the second thing?"

"Time."

Reisi leaned in and pressed his mouth to Suoh's. He hadn't meant to do it, hadn't planned on it at all; he just wanted to, ever since Suoh had said that he wanted to join his life to Reisi's. Kissing him without having given an answer wasn't fair, but it was honest.

Right here on the porch where Reisi had poured his heart out into letters that finally reached their destination more than ten years later.

And it was Saturday.

*

"Boss."

Reisi dragged himself out of a daydream full of early twilight and the soft press of lips against lips, and looked up at Fushimi, who wore a deeper scowl than usual. "Yes, what is it, Fushimi-kun?"

"I don't know what's going on with you but if you're not feeling well, delegate."

Reisi cast a guilty look at his display, where three urgent message notifications blinked in unison. "I'm feeling fine, Fushimi-kun, thank you for your concern. I've just been slightly distracted."

"Slightly? You're signing things sight unseen," Fushimi insisted. "You shouldn't do that."

"Fushimi-kun, if I gave a thorough reading to every document I signed, I'd be signing them all day and still fall behind after about three days. I scan for keywords and sign. That's standard operating procedure."

"Really?" Fushimi produced two dot-matrix printouts and slid them across Reisi's desk. "You signed these this morning."

Reisi looked at the first sheet. It read:

`I, Munakata Reisi, hereby certify that I am a big idiot.`

Reisi snorted softly and looked at the second one.

`All members of SCEPTER4 are hereby required to raise pet monkeys. Anyone who fails to teach their monkey to play the piano in six months' time shall be demoted two ranks.`

"I hope that one didn't actually go down the wire," Reisi said, suppressing a smile. It really wouldn't do to look amused by this, but damn, it was difficult.

"No, but I may have shared the first one with one or two people."

"Diligent as always, Fushimi-kun. I understand your complaint. Please continue to work hard. I will do the same."

Awashima glided into the office, carrying a cup decorated with a failed SCEPTER4 mascot design: a smiling chibi shark.

"Captain, I wanted to ask you-- Fushimi, why are you here? You were supposed to leave to meet with the river patrol twenty minutes ago."

"I'm going, I'm going," Fushimi said, departing.

Reisi stacked the two printouts together and turned them face down. "Yes, Awashima-kun?"

"The merchandise with this design," Awashima said, holding the cup out for Reisi's inspection. "Is there any way we can, um, release it? For personal use?"

Reisi had long since given up trying to understand Awashima's strange tastes, but wasn't this going a bit far? No matter how cute the artist had tried to make the shark, it looked full of killing intent.

"I... suppose the PR department might be grateful if someone were to take those items off their hands," he said slowly. "Have you got a buyer in mind?"

"My niece," Awashima replied. "She's five, though, so not much of a buyer."

"I see," Reisi said. "Very well; please prepare a release form and I'll sign it. Just don't put any monkeys on it."

Awashima raised an eyebrow. "Monkeys, sir?"

_Perhaps Fushimi wasn't lying about not having released the second printout._

"Ah, never mind."

Reisi considered telling Awashima that he'd spoken to Suoh about his continued avoidance of his former Clan, but what could he say? _Sorry, Awashima-kun, but your friend Kusanagi will have to suffer until I either agree to marry Suoh or turn him down properly_ , though true, was not something he was prepared to say.

"While I have you here, please tell me what you think about this hypothetical scenario," he said instead. "Say there is a person in your life who has very strong feelings for you. Then you wrong them terribly. What would you think if that person continued to have those feelings despite the terrible wrong you've committed?"

Awashima furrowed her brow. "How bad of a wrong are we talking about, sir? Destroyed a precious irreplaceable possession level of wrong, or caused great suffering to a family member level of wrong?"

"Hmm, let's see," Reisi said. "The latter, I suppose."

"So I've caused great suffering to their family member and the person continues to feel strongly about me?"

"Precisely."

"Do I care about this person?"

"Let's say you love them."

"Then I'd work hard to atone for what I've done so that I might deserve their feelings. If I did not care for them, I would simply think they were pathetic."

"As expected of the always level-headed Awashima-kun," Reisi said. "Thank you for your input."

"What brought that on, Captain?"

"Oh, just a little social-issues puzzle I am working on, nothing to be concerned about."

"I see. Well, please excuse me."

She withdrew, and Reisi glanced at the clock on his display. Past quitting time, but there were those messages synchronising their sadistic little winks at him. He attended to them -- one a request for hospital access from the Greens' research laboratory, two complaints from Rabbits about failure to corral all civilians after last night's incidents in the harbour and at the soba restaurant in the east end.

"Access denied, complaints noted and filed," Reisi murmured, typing. Then he buzzed his driver. "Shimizu-kun, please bring the car around; I'm done for the day."

He hurried outside through the courtyard -- still being reconstructed after Suoh's spectacular jailbreak last winter -- and got in the car. He made small talk with Shimizu all the way home, but his mind was barely in it and his heart not at all.

The overarching theme of the thoughts in his head today had been _why is it only Wednesday?_ Reisi had serious doubts that tomorrow's refrain would be anything but _why is it only Thursday?_ Was he, like Suoh, just bad at multitasking?

The car pulled up to the front of his building, and Reisi opened the door to get out.

"Thank you, Shimizu-kun, I'll be counting on you tomorrow morning too. A good night to you."

"You got it, Captain. Have a good night."

Reisi walked up to the main entrance and was fishing for the key fob in his pocket when he sensed movement on his left. He turned quickly, expecting to see a neighbour, and found himself staring at the main cause of his newfound inability to function like an adult.

"Suoh," he said, his fingers finally grasping the key fob. "What are you doing here?"

Suoh held up a convenience store bag bulging with cans. "Auntie gave me the evening off so I came to see you. I read the last letter."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to note that ever since Shiro blushed when Kuroh was manhandling him during the first Great Escape from HOMRA, I have envisioned the K universe as one where same-sex relationships aren't subject to the stigma that exists in our world. I thought about including some background on how I imagine that came to be (since the K timeline diverged from ours during WW2, and there had been plenty of oppression and prejudice against LGBT folk in the industrialised world by then), but that's really not relevant to the storyline, so I am including an explanatory note instead. :3


	8. Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reisi remembers a final letter and contemplates the meaning of home; Suoh gets slightly drunk and makes a strange new friend.

Goodbye.

_Reisi ends the final stroke and puts the pen down. It falls through the boards of the back porch, and he has to duck out into the drizzle to retrieve it from the ground. When he returns to the notebook, the wind has blown a few raindrops onto the top margin of the open page, smudging part of the ink, like tear stains._

Great. My life is a tragic romance novel full of cliché, _Reisi thinks. He deposits the pen in the box with the ink bottle and scoots backwards, further underneath the overhang. He holds the dampened page upright with two fingers and waits for the wind to dry it out enough to close the book. His gaze falls upon the previous letter, written several months ago, when he was home for winter break._

_He reads it with a smile that's half bitter amusement at his own naïveté, half dark satisfaction at having already taken the first step to crushing the person who wrote this drivel. His fingers slide from the edge of the damp page to the bottom, holding it apart from the rest as he uses his free hand to flip pages back, reading, bearing witness to the slow and ugly death of hope, in reverse._

_He stops when he reaches the end of their high school days. He wants to laugh. All of the answers he so desperately wanted have been here in these letters. His subconscious has been reaching out to him through them, and he never even gave it a chance. Every single letter contains details about Suoh's behaviour, the mundane things he said, that proclaim Suoh's complete indifference._

_Reisi glances at the page he's been holding free. A simple goodbye won't do after all._

I don't remember if I've ever told you about Shibata. He sat next to me during the entrance ceremony at university and we ended up in a bunch of the same mandatory classes in first year. He confessed to me just before we broke for the summer holidays. I told him I already had somebody I was in love with, but unlike those before him, he was not deterred. Seems he could tell that my feelings were one-sided and thought it was a waste. He was persistent but somehow not annoying; I would turn him down, and he would laugh it off and say he'd try again later. I was quite envious of his extremely casual approach and often wished I could be a little more like him.

After I left your place today, I sent Shibata a mail. He called me back right away and picked me up in his car less than twenty minutes after that. He asked where I wanted to go; I said the name of a hotel.

I did not think of you at all.

Now I understand that you had become my excuse not to let anyone in. Like a loyal guard dog, I jealously protected your place in my heart, growling and snapping at everyone who tried to encroach upon it. I expect it shall take some time before I stop reacting that way on instinct. But even though you were never in my thoughts when I was with Shibata, you were back as soon as he dropped me off at the station. I felt stupid and broken and deceitful. I felt as though I had let you down.

That was when I realised that even if I do not guard it, your place will not change unless I do. The person I have kept in my heart all these years is just a pretty portrait that I have painted for myself. If you hadn't taken it upon yourself to make your feelings clear to me, perhaps I would have remained in the past forever, waiting for the wind to blow my way, waiting for you to remember, to return to me.

So before I finish this last letter to you, I must thank you for taking that initiative, Suoh.

Farewell.

_Reisi caps the pen, screws the top back onto the ink bottle, and shuts them in the writing box. He folds the notebook closed with both hands and contemplates tossing it out into the garden. He could then find where it will have fallen and dig it a grave, a deep one amidst the trees, where no one would ever discover it. He will never open it again; he's certainly not going to carry such a thing to his new residence, wherever it might be. It is a piece of his past now, too heavy to carry into the future._

_Reisi closes his eyes, holds the notebook to his chest, and imagines living in a place and time where these letters and Suoh are only memories._

"I would have called," Suoh added as Reisi stood there staring at him. "But I don't know your number."

"It's the same number it always was," Reisi said, punching in the code. "I guess you don't remember it. Come in."

"I had it saved in my old phone," Suoh said as they walked through the lobby towards the elevator. "I never memorised it."

Reisi didn't know why he wanted to press this issue. Most people didn't memorise telephone numbers these days; why bother when everyone and their pet lizard had a PDA or smartphone? Suoh had caught him off-guard, though, showing up out of the blue when Reisi was having enough trouble keeping his shit together at work. And Suoh needed to understand that there was little left in Reisi of the lovestruck teenager with whom Suoh had been spending _his_ time, through those old letters.

_Have I finally reached a place where Suoh's just a man, not some godlike apparition in need of enthronement?_

"You look pissed off," Suoh commented as they stepped outside the elevator. "Am I in the way of something?"

"No," Reisi said, stopping next to his apartment. "It's nothing, really." _I'm a coward._ "Please wait here a moment."

He went inside and disabled the security camera that observed the door. Just in case anyone -- like Fushimi, for example -- was keeping an eye on his visitors. He technically wasn't supposed to do this to the camera, but it would only be for a few moments. "Come on in," he called.

Suoh walked in, gave Reisi and the camera a curious once-over, took off his shoes, and brushed past. Reisi plugged the power back in and waited for the standby light to turn green. "Hazards of the trade," he explained to Suoh, nodding towards the living room.

"Where's your fridge?" Suoh asked, holding up his bag.

"I'll take them back there; please make yourself at home in the meantime."

"Are there cameras all over the apartment?" Suoh asked, following Reisi to the kitchen.

"No, just the entrances."

"Fight me to the death, you worthless cur," the kitchen robot screeched as Reisi opened the refrigerator door.

"Good evening to you too," Reisi said.

Suoh eyed the robot. "What's its problem?"

"I ran its firmware update a day late last week," Reisi explained. "I think it's still mad." He reached into the bag and found the cans in it warm to the touch. "How long were you waiting?"

"Couple of hours," Suoh said. "I didn't know what time you finished work. Didn't think it was a good idea to pick you up from there."

"I suppose not," Reisi said with a wry grin. "We are still recovering from the visit you paid us in your former capacity."

He opened the freezer compartment and stuck two cans of beer in it. "Couple of minutes in here and they'll be good to go." He unloaded the other sixteen cans into the fridge and eyed Suoh. "Just how drunk do you want to get, anyway?"

"Oh, are you still as much as a lightweight as you were when we were ten? Sorry about that."

Reisi smirked, tossing the empty plastic bag to the robot. It snatched it out of the air and shredded it into the plastic recycling container.

"What kind of snacks do you want?" Reisi asked, turning to the cupboards. "I've got--"

Suoh grabbed Reisi's forearm, spun him around and kissed him, the same way Reisi had done on Saturday, lips barely parted. His other hand cradled Reisi's face, and as his thumb slid across Reisi's cheek, Reisi reached up with is own hand to cover Suoh's, to keep it there. His heart raced, and he wanted to close his eyes and let this happen, let it go to whatever conclusion Suoh meant for it, even if it was just a few minutes of these hesitant kisses that stirred his chest but not his blood.

Then he remembered that it was still only Wednesday.

"If we do this, Fushimi-kun will be scolding me again tomorrow," he murmured, folding his fingers down over Suoh's and tugging his hand away as he freed his other arm. He turned back to the cupboard and told Suoh about Fushimi's little jokes while rummaging for the package of dried squid he _knew_ was there somewhere. It felt really important to find that particular package, at least until his heartbeat returned to normal.

"Sounds like he thinks he's the boss," Suoh said.

"Quite," Reisi agreed. "I prefer not to disabuse him of the notion; he does much better work when he thinks he's in charge."

"Sounds like he's happier on your side."

"I think Fushimi-kun just wants to feel in control. Maybe I'll give him a division to lead so he'll stop trying to micromanage me."

"I remember when we picked them up on the street, him and Yata. They reminded me of you and me when we were brats. Smart guy in glasses, redhead with a stupid face."

Reisi bit his lip. _So he used to think back to the good old days even when he was King._ He found the squid, plus a couple of boxes of pretzel sticks and a packet of tiny rice crackers. Reisi handed the lot to the robot. "Arrange them however you want and bring them out to the living room. You can have any of the wrappers."

"I am grateful," the robot said. It liked brightly coloured packaging and spent all of its idle time playing with a collection that it kept in a disused cupboard.

Reisi opened the freezer, retrieved the now-chilled cans, and gestured for Suoh to follow him into the living room.

"Your place is a lot fancier than I thought," Suoh remarked as he sat down. "Kitchen robot, nice cabinets, huge TV. I thought it would be more, I dunno. Spartan."

Reisi clicked the TV on and lowered the volume to almost zero. "His Excellency wanted me to live in special quarters at the barracks, with the rest of the Blue Clan. I do sleep there sometimes, but I like my creature comforts and my privacy."

"Privacy, huh," Suoh said, looking straight at the camera that observed the balcony entrance.

"If you want to smoke, you don't need to go out there. I smoke here sometimes, and it airs out well, so it's fine."

"Not what I meant, but okay," Suoh said, pulling a pack of cigarettes out of his back pocket. "Have one?"

Reisi declined. "I'm just going to get changed."

"Can I come watch?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Reisi said, flushing as he escaped to his bedroom and locked the door just in case Suoh decided to follow him the way he'd followed to the kitchen earlier. He'd been free enough with his hands in the kitchen. Heaven only knew what he might get up to if Reisi took his clothes off in front of him.

Granted, Reisi had run off like his ass was on fire right after kissing Suoh on Saturday, barely pausing to mutter a farewell. He had kind of owed Suoh one for the element of surprise. But Suoh seemed to be taking the extremely ill-advised kissing as confirmation that Reisi wanted to pursue a physical relationship, and Reisi wasn't sure that was a good idea. Daydreams were one thing, but the very thought of Suoh's arms around him filled him with unnamable dread. The last time Suoh had done that, he'd _died_.

Reisi changed into track pants and a plain T-shirt, placed his uniform into a dry-cleaning bag and pulled a fresh set out for tomorrow, then returned to the living room. Suoh had changed the channel to some variety show -- one Reisi vaguely recognised as a favourite of his mother's.

"What's the topic?" he asked, taking a seat and popping his beer open. The robot had been by in the meantime; the snacks were on the table.

"They're getting people to say words in other languages that sound like they could be Japanese words," Suoh said. "They did the same thing last Wednesday; Auntie loved it."

Reisi reached for a handful of crackers and noticed the kitchen robot loitering by Suoh's side. "Was the robot bothering you?"

"Huh? Oh, no, I gave it a candy wrapper I found in my pocket just now."

"Don't do that," Reisi said, pushing the robot's _Home_ button to make it return to the kitchen. "Now it'll think you're its friend."

"That doesn't sound bad."

"It's not if you enjoy a loudmouthed bucket of bolts following you around the house."

"Forget about the robot, Munakata, are you still with that guy?"

 _That guy? Oh. The letter. Shibata._ "No, I told you, I'm not with anyone."

"So what, you fucked him once and he dropped you?"

Reisi pursed his lips, drank. "Not quite." _Just how pathetic does he think I am?_

Suoh frowned. "You dropped him?"

"No," Reisi said. "He had already been offered a job with the Interpol and was moving to France in a couple of months. Permanently." _My life really was a terrible romance novel back then._

"So why was I supposed to change my mind about marrying you after reading that you did it once with some guy?"

"More than once," Reisi clarified. "And after he left, lots of guys." None of them had meant anything to Reisi, and Reisi hadn't meant anything to any of them -- Shibata had been the only one Reisi had had any regard for. But he wasn't going to explain any of that to Suoh. It was what it was.

"That why you like privacy so much?" Suoh asked after draining his beer.

Reisi looked at him. "I don't bring anyone home with me for... such purposes."

"Hotels?"

Reisi nodded and took another drink. "And that's why I said you might change your mind."

"Munakata."

"What?" Reisi looked up to find Suoh staring at him, flat-eyed, and waited for him to say the obvious: _You were right. I changed my mind._

"I wouldn't change my mind even if you made your living on your back."

Reisi's breathing hitched. "I see." He called for the robot to bring Suoh another beer and stared at the television, not seeing it. How was he supposed to feel? Thinking of Suoh with others had always made him uncomfortable, anxious, so much so that he didn't _want_ to know any details. "It really doesn't matter to you?"

"I don't like it, and I wanna beat up every one of those guys, especially the Interpol one, but _you_ never owed me anything like staying away from other guys."

Reisi breathed out, drank, wiped his mouth. "I suppose next you'll want to know how much time I need."

"Nope."

Reisi turned to him, surprised. "No?"

"This isn't a video game," Suoh said. "I'm not waiting to clear one stage just to move on to the next one. I've got all the time in the world."

Reisi felt vaguely ashamed of himself, but he wasn't sure why. "But what about your friends?" _Don't you care?_

"I'll contact Izumo. But I'm not going back there unless you throw me out. That part of my life is over."

Reisi lifted his beer can and found it empty. The robot brought another.

They drank and watched TV, as though it were the sort of thing they did every night. Suoh looked like he'd had enough of talking, and Reisi felt the same. Sometimes you had to be quiet together. His father had taught him that.

Later, he walked Suoh to the station and put him on a train, then took his time getting back to the apartment. The night air wrapped him up in wind, as though trying to carry him home.

Trouble was, Reisi wasn't sure if that apartment was home any more. He'd never really felt at home there -- what sort of home was it when you were all alone, with nothing for company but a robot who couldn't decide if it was an old-timey samurai or a puppy?

The only people he loved were living under a roof he didn't share.

*

"You're early today," his mother said as Reisi walked into the living room on Saturday. "Before you ask, the man of the house is at the hardware store buying fluorescent lights."

Reisi sat down next to her. He had been spectacularly useless at work since Wednesday night, but especially so that morning. When Awashima offered to take over for him if he wanted to have a couple of extra hours off, she hadn't needed to ask twice. "The man of the house, huh? What are you watching?"

She smiled. "Hey, I'm just saying, if you don't want him, I'll take him." She turned the volume down a bit. "I don't even know what this is, something about mistaken identities. It's supposed to be funny but I haven't laughed even once."

"What makes you think I don't want him?"

She muted the TV. "You still haven't given him a proper answer, have you?"

Reisi sighed. "It's pretty complicated."

Chisato patted Reisi's back. "Love hurts a lot," she said. "But it doesn't always."

Reisi snorted. "Not a ringing endorsement."

She cleared her throat. "Rei-chan, you know I don't like to pry into your affairs."

"But?"

"But I just don't understand what's happened to you and Mikoto-chan. And I'd like to."

Reisi took a deep breath to settle himself. "If I told you even half of it, you wouldn't believe me. This is something I'll have to do on my own."

"All right," she said. "I might just be an old lady with nothing to do but gossip these days, but if you change your mind, you can tell me anything."

"Thank you, Mother. I'll remember that. And you're not a gossip."

She punched his shoulder lightly. "You look just like me, so I always forget how much like your father you really are. I could tell you about me and him. Some things, we never saw eye to eye on as long as he lived."

"Like birthday cakes?" Reisi asked. His father would complain whenever a cake had even a touch of white frosting on it. Since white was the colour of mourning, it didn't belong on birthday cakes, in Munakata Seiji's opinion.

"Those, and other things too."

"I've never seen you two argue about anything except birthday cakes."

"That's because we made sure you didn't see or hear us. We agreed on most things to do with raising a kid. Having a big house like this didn't hurt in keeping you out of earshot, either."

Reisi wasn't sure how to feel. She rarely talked about Father since he'd died. Reisi himself preferred not to, especially since learning that death didn't have to be permanent if you knew the right King to ask.

Suoh walked in, carrying at least a dozen long cardboard tubes on his shoulder. Reisi's breath caught at the sight of him, the way it hadn't in years.

"Mikoto-chan, isn't that too many?"

Suoh shook his head. "I counted twice."

"I'm going to move back here," Reisi said. "Is that okay, Mother?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last week I noticed that I had mis-rated this story on AO3. I am used to posting on LJ and being able to specify an overall rating in the first post (and chapter ratings later), so I totally didn't realise that I hadn't been specifying ratings on the individual chapters at AO3 until now. /o\ The overall rating on the story has now been updated, and if you are following this story and do not wish to read sexually explicit material, please let me know in comments/inbox/email (my AO3 username at gmail) -- I don't need you to explain your reasons, just to let me know. If I hear from even one person, I will make a non-explicit version available offsite (and link in beginning notes) when I post any chapters with explicit content.


	9. Pictures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reisi remembers the day he left home and finds out that you can indeed go home again, the Gold King has priorities, Suoh discovers a novel method of calming down, and Awashima brings a visitor.

_Reisi steps inside his room and studies the interior. It looks strange with the bed stripped, the wardrobe empty, and the bookshelves bare. He feels a peculiar loneliness: his whole life, when he wanted to be alone, this is where he retreated. Even when living in the dorms, he thought of this room as his safe haven. Leaving the house feels like a betrayal in the first place, and that feeling is strongest here._

_Will he feel just as safe in the new place just because it's his? Or will he lie awake wishing he were back in this room, in this house, with all its familiar smells and noises?_

_The bottom shelf of the dresser is open. Reisi steps over to close it and spots an upside-down picture frame -- it must have fallen off the dresser when the movers were taking the boxes away. He lifts it out._

_His mother took that photo the last time they went ice-fishing, just before middle school. Suoh and Reisi, dressed in parkas, thick scarves making their necks look nonexistent, are squatting on either side of the fish bucket. The boys are grinning at the camera, and Suoh's mother, out of frame, is giving her son bunny ears with black-gloved fingers. Reisi remembers Suoh complaining about the bunny ears after the pictures were printed, but Ayane-san was adamant that she was only flashing a V sign because she thought she was in the shot._

_Pictures are never just pictures; there is a story behind every one. This photograph has always told a happy story. How many times has Reisi glanced at this photo and let it fill him with false confidence?_

One day, we'll go there again. One day, we'll be able to smile like this at each other. One day, we'll go back to how things used to be. Somehow.

_Suoh's voice, dispassionate yet mocking, fills his mind._ What do you take me for, your boyfriend?

_He places the photo face down in the drawer and slides it shut._

Reisi wondered if the photo was still in that drawer in his old room, and how it would make him feel now.

"Of course it's okay," Chisato said, giving his shoulder another feather-punch. "Why would you even ask? This will be your house long after I'm gone."

"You aren't going anywhere," Reisi said automatically, watching Suoh carry the fluorescent light tubes into the back of the house. He'd been looking at his mother and hadn't noticed how Suoh had reacted to the news.

"What about your work? Didn't you move out to be closer?"

"That was before the express train line," Reisi said. "The one that only stops at the planetarium? Takes fifteen minutes -- about as long as it takes to drive from my building to work, downtown traffic being what it is."

"Oh, there's such a train now? I haven't gone into the city in a long time," Chisato said. "Never liked it there, truth be told. Too noisy. No sense of community."

Reisi, who had never quite managed to understand what 'a sense of community' even meant, nodded vaguely.

"What will you do with the apartment?"

"Keep it as a backup," Reisi, who had been anticipating the question, said. "In case there's an earthquake or something and the trains aren't running. Might rent it out if the circumstances are right."

"Ah, I was watching a programme the other day, about short term rentals to foreign tourists," Chisato said. "Can be risky, but all the people interviewed said it was worth it."

Reisi had no real intentions of renting out his apartment, of course. He would need a private place to change into uniform before going into work; he couldn't do that at headquarters without creating all manner of gossip. The uniform was one of the things he hadn't changed about SCEPTER4, and his mother would surely recognise it, since SCEPTER4 was, at least on paper, attached to the police department and even participated in the annual parade.

Besides, Shimizu was used to picking Reisi up and dropping him off at the same place every day -- it wouldn't be fair to force him into a new routine or even reassign him because of Reisi's private life.

"I might consider that," he said out loud; the only honest thing he _could_ say under the circumstances.

"Or you could sell it," Chisato said. "Property taxes downtown are so high, seems a waste to pay them if you aren't even living there."

"It'll work out somehow," Reisi said without looking at her. He couldn't very well explain that being the Blue King brought with it certain privileges, such as unlimited free parking and not having his income and property taxed by the government. Also free admission to all city zoos, which Reisi had never quite understood.

"So when will you move back in?" Chisato asked, rising. "Will you be using your old room?"

"I'll have to notify the higher-ups," Reisi said as he followed her deeper into the house. "So probably next weekend. What other room would I use?"

"The master bedroom's been empty since your father passed," she said, looking over her shoulder. "Since you're going to get married anyway, you and Mikoto-chan might as well start using it. I'm certainly not going to."

Reisi blushed. "Please don't put the cart before the horse, Mother."

She stopped and put her hands on her hips. "Why not? You want to come back so you can be closer to him, am I wrong?"

"Not entirely," Reisi admitted. "It's not just that, though. I never wanted to move out in the first place, you know."

*

"Good morning, Your Excellency," Reisi said into the phone, his insides squirming.

"I saw the notice," the Gold King said. "I'm fine with it, but if your mother's health is that bad, you should hire a nurse, not try to play one yourself."

"Thank you for your concern, Your Excellency. Her health is quite fine at the moment," Reisi, who had cited 'parental health concerns' on the Notice of Residence Transfer form, said. "I am merely thinking ahead. I would prefer to monitor her condition instead of having to react to an emergency situation, should one arise."

The Gold King harrumphed. "Fine by me. Make sure you do hire a nurse if her condition worsens. The Greens look to be trying to become as troublesome as the Reds once were and I can't have you distracted."

"Yes, sir." He hung up, wondering what the Gold King would say if he knew how distracted Reisi was by one of the former Reds. He had, for a few seconds, considered ticking the "marriage" box on the NRT form, but that would have invited questions regarding his marriage partner.

Also, it would have been completely false. He wasn't moving home so he could get married. Not yet.

*

Reisi left all of the furniture and appliances behind, but he couldn't bring himself to leave the robot. As much as his mother had grumbled about bringing a robot into the house, upon meeting it on moving day, she decided it was cute and promptly named it Pochi.

"Pochi," the robot squawked, almost wonderingly, its head-dome rotating as it scanned its new surroundings and committed them to memory. "Pochi is grateful, Mistress."

Reisi sighed. "Mother, you really shouldn't have done that. The ones from this series get attached to people for the silliest reasons." He glanced sideways at Suoh, who quickly pocketed something that sounded suspiciously like a candy wrapper.

"Eh? It's fine even if it gets attached, right?" Chisato said, prodding the robot's base with her foot. "If it's going to live here, it might as well feel at home."

"It's a robot," Reisi said. "It's not even alive."

"It has feelings, doesn't it? This is why I don't trust technology, see. They make things that can feel emotions and turn them into household appliances -- it's not right."

"Yeah, one day the robots will revolt," Suoh put in. "Then everyone who treated them like crap will be sorry."

"You guys watch too much television," Reisi said, grabbing a box of books off the floor and heading for his room.

"That show was based on a novel!" his mother called after him.

*

Waking up an hour earlier than usual was the hardest part. Reisi's work at SCEPTER4 was fairly predictable; most days he was at HQ by seven-thirty in the morning and out by six in the evening, with most of the time in between eaten up by admin work and meeting after boring meeting. If something major was going on, he usually knew about it beforehand and could make arrangements to stay at the apartment until the crisis passed.

One night in late July, a powerful Strain who had escaped captivity in Shizuoka stepped off a train downtown and ran around making cars start by themselves and setting off their alarms. Reisi got the call, rolled out of bed, pulled on a pair of pants and said a quiet prayer of thanks for trains running on a twenty-four hour schedule since the Kagutsu Incident. Thirty minutes later, he was in uniform and running downstairs to a yawning Shimizu in the driver's seat and Awashima beside him, looking as put-together as always. Such cases were rare, though -- most incidents didn't require Reisi's presence at all.

Before deciding to move home, Reisi had suspected that being able to see Suoh every day would rub the novelty off fairly quickly, ending the infernal daydreaming and the absent-mindedness; he'd been right. He was soon having trouble remembering what life had been like when he'd lived at the apartment: he'd come home, fix something to eat, maybe go to a hotel with one of the men from the password-protected folder in his address book, sleep, repeat. After Suoh's death, the hotel trysts had all but stopped. Nothing like killing the love of your life to decimate your sex drive. And now that Suoh was not only alive but living in the same house, even Reisi's sex drive was making a steady comeback.

Suoh talked little, but his presence alone was enough for Reisi. After a few weeks, the fear that Suoh would disappear -- just up and leave, whether going back to HOMRA or simply deciding Reisi wasn't worth the wait -- vanished.

Before, he had spent all his time just going through his days, waiting for the next crisis; he had a reason to get out of bed in the morning. Now, he had reasons to come home.

*

"Mikoto-chan, your birthday's next week," Chisato said one night after returning from her after-dinner walk. "Do you want to do something special or shall we just have cake?"

_Oh, that's right_ Reisi had forgotten all about that. _Has it really been two months since we brought Suoh back?_ It felt like much longer. Reisi couldn't decide if that was good or bad.

Suoh, who had been dozing on the couch, looked up. "I'm too old to get excited about a birthday."

"Nonsense," Chisato said, lowering herself to the couch. "It's the day you were born, of course we should celebrate. Living isn't so easy."

Suoh turned to Reisi, who looked back down at his PDA. The SCEPTER4 monthly general meeting minutes failed to command his interest, however.

"Anything's fine, Auntie," Suoh said. "Just don't go out of your way on my account."

Later that night, Reisi came out of the bath and spotted Suoh on the back porch, smoking. He draped the towel across his bare shoulders and walked out to him, intentionally stepping on the creaky floorboards so Suoh would hear him approaching.

"Is there anything you want for your birthday?" Reisi asked, stopping in the doorway. He had always been terrible at picking presents for any occasion and preferred to ask, even if it ruined the surprise. Besides, he hadn't thought about birthday presents for Suoh in years. He hadn't even congratulated him in the past two years.

"Last year, Totsuka threw a surprise party," Suoh said, gazing at the pond water flickering with stars.

"As much as I would love to oblige, I'm not sure it would be appropriate," Reisi said, his tone dry. "I fear your former clansmen might become a tad upset with me for such cynicism, seeing as they still think you're dead."

"I don't mean I want you to throw a party," Suoh said. "It's just. Totsuka's gone."

_Shit._ Reisi sat down next to Suoh. "I'm sorry. Do you want me to try and persuade Mother not to do anything?"

"'Try' would be the key word there," Suoh said, leaning over slightly to bump Reisi. "Nah, it's fine. But don't get me anything."

"Okay." Reisi waited for Suoh to return to his original position, but Suoh continued to lean against his shoulder.

"It's not like there's anything I want, anyway," Suoh said.

"What a lucky guy," Reisi said with a smirk. "Only twenty-five and already has everything he wants."

"Just what money can buy," Suoh murmured, turning to face Reisi. "Also, I'm still twenty-four."

_He's going to try something,_ Reisi thought. _And I'm going to let him._

"Let's go see a movie," Suoh said. "On my birthday."

"Cinemas give Mother a headache," Reisi said, relaxing a little.

Suoh shook his head. "I meant you and me. Like a date."

_Oh._ Heat prickled Reisi's face, and he was glad it was dark out here. "Are you going to hold my hand through the whole thing and let me hide my face in your chest during the scary parts?" he joked to cover up his embarrassment.

Suoh blinked. "Is that what really happens on movie dates?"

"That's just the stereotype," Reisi said. Not that he would know. He had never gone on a date at the movies; other dates he _had_ been on were usually face-saving gestures to justify meaningless sex.

Suoh sat back up and took a drag of his cigarette. "It sounds out of character for you to hide at the scary parts."

"I agree."

Suoh looked at him. "You agree to the date or you agree it's out of character for you?"

"Both."

*

"What do you want to see?" Reisi asked as they stood in the cinema lobby.

The last time he'd been here -- or to any cinema, in fact -- had been eight, maybe nine years ago, and he had been with Suoh then, too, plus a couple of other kids from their class. He wondered if Suoh remembered it too. The film they'd watched back then had had something to do with cars, or maybe robots, or cars that were also robots.

Then he remembered the conversation he'd had with Fushimi on the plane to London. He'd told Fushimi that he was too busy to go to the cinema, but the truth was that he didn't have anyone to go with. Not in a very long time.

Suoh studied the marquee displays. "I have no idea what's supposed to be good."

Reisi took out his PDA. "I'll look them up."

"Let's just go see whatever's playing first," Suoh said. "It's more exciting if you don't know what you're going to get."

_What's so exciting about that?_ Reisi wondered, but he let Suoh drag him to the ticket counter. It was Suoh's birthday; Reisi would have obliged him even if he'd decided to stay home and watch a documentary about the migratory patterns of butterflies.

They got to their assigned seats -- near the screen and off to the side, as expected with buying tickets right before a showing -- just as the previews started.

Suoh, seated to Reisi's left, elbowed him over the armrest. "Your hand," he said. "Give it to me."

Reisi snickered and placed his arm on the armrest. "You're supposed to wait until the movie starts and then take it yourself, all casual-like."

Suoh folded his hand over Reisi's and pulled it into his lap. "Maybe if I was fifteen," he said into Reisi's ear.

"Oh, my mistake," Reisi said, trying to keep his tone light despite his pounding heart. "You're a full _decade_ older than that today."

"Shut up," Suoh advised him and squeezed Reisi's fingers for emphasis. "Twenty-five isn't old."

As the movie started, Reisi realised he'd forgotten to look at the ticket to see what it was even called. It was in English, and he missed the title -- and the translation -- because Suoh had chosen that moment to flatten Reisi's hand against the top of his thigh. It was all Reisi could do not to give it a reflexive squeeze before Suoh laced their fingers together and leaned over to put his head on Reisi's shoulder.

Reisi shut his eyes and started committing this to memory -- the rapid-fire English from the speaker right above him, the scents of popcorn and overpriced beer in the air, the tickle of Suoh's hair against his neck, the warm weight of Suoh's hand on top of his, the rough texture of Suoh's jeans beneath his palm. He wished this would have happened when they'd been fifteen. He wished for the courage to lean sideways and rest his cheek against Suoh's hair. He wished things weren't so goddamned complicated that he couldn't just quietly enjoy this.

Most of all, he wished they were alone.

Reisi's PDA buzzed against his thigh, and he manoeuvred it out of his pocket with one hand, trying not to jostle Suoh. _Please don't be work._

The mail was from Kenta, a man Reisi had slept with a few times. They didn't know each other's surnames; in fact, Kenta knew him as Ryou.

`Long time no see. Up for some adult entertainment? ww`

Reisi balanced the phone on his thigh and typed, `Sorry, I'm on a date.`

The reply arrived almost instantly. `Lucky devil. Maybe next time.`

_Maybe never,_ Reisi thought, and then wondered where that had come from. He hadn't given Suoh an answer, and though this _was_ a date, it was for Suoh's birthday. It didn't change anything.

Did it?

He stole a careful glance to his left and discovered that Suoh had fallen asleep. Reisi put his phone away and turned his attention back to the film, torn between chagrin and amusement.

The movie followed several people trying to stop a deadly virus from spreading across the world. Reisi found it difficult to relate to. One of his people could manipulate Blue Aura at the molecular level over wide areas; she could destroy every harmful virus or bacterium in a room the size of this theatre in about three minutes. Worldwide contagion simply wasn't a real threat with people like that around. True, the Kings and their clans were officially secret, but they were still out in the world, doing as they liked.

_It's been a while since I've been out like this, out of uniform, surrounded by people who have no idea what I am._ Well, Suoh knew, but he had been King once. Reisi wondered how Suoh had gone around in the world, locked in his struggle with Red Aura. Knowing, as Reisi did, that you could destroy a place and all the people in it if you wanted to was all well and good, but Reisi couldn't even imagine knowing that it might happen even if you didn't want it to.

The film's many different plot lines converged, a bunch of people died, a vaccine was found, the credits rolled. The first trickle of watchers began to exit the theatre.

Reisi bumped Suoh with his shoulder. Suoh sat up, eyes bright in the light reflected from the movie screen. "Where--?" He looked down at their linked hands, then at Reisi's face.

Reisi leaned close to Suoh's ear. "If you just wanted to sleep on me, you could've done that at home, stupid."

*

The evening after the movie outing, Reisi sat cross-legged on his bed, going through the daily activity reports all SCEPTER4 members were required to e-mail before turning in.

The door to his room slid open and Suoh poked his head inside. "Busy?"

"Not especially," Reisi said. He would have time to read the rest of the reports in the morning, before Shimizu picked him up from the apartment.

Suoh walked inside, plopped unceremoniously down on the bed behind Reisi with one leg folded under him, and stuck his chin over Reisi's shoulder. "What are you reading?"

"A gripping tale of rescuing a treed cat," Reisi explained. "A report came in about a confused animal Strain setting trash bags on fire, but somehow wires got crossed with the fire department _and_ animal control, and our guys ended up at the wrong address."

"So they saved the cat even though they didn't have to? What a bunch of goody-two-shoes you guys are." Suoh put his arm around Reisi's waist and turned his head to the side, pressing his cheek against Reisi's right upper back.

Reisi's stomach muscles tensed. "Suoh."

"You said it was okay," Suoh said. "Yesterday. To sleep on you."

Reisi tried to crane his neck to look at him; it didn't work. He put his hand atop Suoh's arm, not quite ready to pry it away. A picture of a cute black kitten was attached to Kusuhara's report; Reisi stared at it, unable to think of a thing. "You aren't sleeping, though," he said. _Yes, thank you, Captain Obvious._

"I can calm down like this," Suoh muttered. "If I touch you."

_Calm down? Has he been having trouble sleeping?_ "What's on your mind?"

"I don't know what to do about Izumo and them," Suoh said. "I looked up the bar's number and started to dial a million times, but I don't know what I'm gonna say."

"Maybe the phone isn't ideal," Reisi suggested.

"So what, do I just... walk into the bar and go hey, long time no see? Sorry about not being dead this whole time?"

Reisi sighed. "I'm not sure I'm the best person to ask. I don't know any of your associates aside from what was in their files."

"Yeah, but you're always thinking about other people's feelings."

"That doesn't work out very well for me," Reisi said with a light snort. "Generally speaking."

"At least you can care about more than one thing at a time."

"So can you," Reisi said. "You just don't try to."

Suoh's arm around his waist tightened. "I want to kiss you."

Reisi's pulse quickened. _Who am I even kidding, trying to keep any sort of distance here?_ "Okay."

"Okay as in it's okay to kiss you or are you just acknowledging what I said?"

"I don't know," Reisi said, so low it was almost a whisper, half-turning to look at Suoh. "Why don't you find out?"

Suoh climbed all the way up onto the bed and knelt in front of Reisi, balancing on one fist while reaching for Reisi's face with his free hand. He took Reisi's glasses off and put them on the bedside table behind him without turning around. _He remembers my room well enough to do that?_

With his glasses gone, everything around Reisi blurred; Suoh filled his whole world. Suoh sat down properly, leaned close and kissed the corner of Reisi's mouth. Reisi turned slightly and took Suoh's bottom lip into his mouth, wetting it with his tongue. Suoh cradled Reisi's cheek the way he'd done back at the apartment and exhaled; his breath ran hot across Reisi's skin, so hot it brought a bone-deep shiver, and Reisi's self-control began to crumble.

He licked Suoh's lower lip again and then slid his tongue into Suoh's mouth. He'd always known the taste of Suoh's cigarettes, but not like this, not from the inside. Suoh's mouth opened for him, his tongue met Reisi's, and Reisi had to fight to bite back a moan. _If I'm having trouble now, what will happen if we go further?_

Suoh ran his hands up Reisi's sides and pulled him closer. Reisi's heartbeat echoed in his temples, his head felt heavy; he was forgetting how to breathe and his eyelids wouldn't lift -- he just wanted to shut out everything that wasn't Suoh's mouth against his, Suoh's hot, hot breath in him. Suoh's hands moved across Reisi's back as though trying to memorise every part of it by touch. All Reisi could do was hold on to Suoh's neck and respond to Suoh's kisses; if he tried anything else, he wouldn't be able to keep his voice down.

Suoh's fingers found the hem of Reisi's T-shirt, lifted it.

"No, stop," Reisi breathed, breaking the kiss and scooting away before Suoh could touch his bare skin. "Mother might hear."

"Auntie went to bed hours ago," Suoh said, his voice thick.

Reisi got up and walked a few paces away, unsteady. The dresser came into focus, and he headed for it just so he could see something that wasn't Suoh. "She's a light sleeper."

Suoh followed him, backed him against the dresser, and pressed in close, cupping Reisi's ass with both hands. "I want to take you to bed," he murmured against Reisi's neck.

"I can tell," Reisi said, trying not to think about the extremely hard part of Suoh pushing against his upper thigh. It felt so hot that Reisi wouldn't have been surprised if it burned right through both pairs of pyjama pants. Reisi's hands had come to rest upon Suoh's chest, and Suoh's frantic heartbeat against his fingertips wasn't helping.

Suoh pulled back and looked into his face. "You don't want to?"

"If Mother weren't two doors down, I'd climb you like a tree," Reisi said through his teeth. The look in Suoh's eyes grew sharp, and Suoh's hands squeezed his ass tighter.

"She won't wake up," Suoh whispered. "We'll be quiet."

Reisi lowered his eyes and fought to keep from blushing. "I don't know how to, um... be quiet."

Suoh let out a harsh breath and pressed his forehead against the dresser behind Reisi. "Shit, Munakata; you're doing this on purpose, aren't you? Saying stuff like that."

Reisi kissed his cheek and edged away. Seeing Suoh barely holding it together like this should have made him lose his mind, but instead he could practically feel the reins on the situation materialising in his hands. He no longer felt drugged. "What happened to being able to calm down?"

"I'm calm," Suoh said. "I just want you."

"You know the ornamental bowl with the lilies? On the shelf near the front entrance?"

Suoh lifted his head and glared at Reisi. "What does that have to do with this? Are you making fun of me?"

"Inside the bowl, there's a set of keys with a shark keychain," Reisi continued, biting his lip to keep from laughing at Suoh's peevish expression. "The spare set for my apartment in the city. I'm there every day before heading home."

Suoh straightened up and let go of Reisi with obvious reluctance. "What about those cameras?"

"I don't officially live there any more, so I disabled them." Reisi walked back to the bed and put his glasses back on. It made him feel fully in control of himself again, but only just. If Suoh kissed him again, he'd go to pieces. "You can come any time."

He wanted to be sure that Suoh would take no for an answer. He'd never seemed the type, but it was a deal-breaker for Reisi, and not one he could just ask about. Obviously, if Suoh knew that Reisi couldn't stand men who tried to force him, he wouldn't use force, but doing something because it came naturally and doing it to avoid consequences were quite different.

Suoh took a deep breath. "I'm going for a smoke. You want one?"

Reisi's self-destructive streak suggested he make a joke about only smoking after sex, but he squashed the thought. _That would just be mean._ "No, thanks," he said. "I need to get some sleep before work."

*

He should have known that letting things get that far would put him into daydream-mode again, but Reisi just couldn't bring himself to feel guilty. The passion he had lost over the years had returned; his head was full of Suoh, and this time it wasn't in vain. Even knowing that Suoh wanted the same things he wanted was enough to ground him. If that made him pathetic, Reisi didn't care.

The intercom buzzed and flashed. "Captain, do you have a few moments? There is someone here to see you about a private matter."

_Private matter? Could it be Suoh? Impossible._ "Very well, Awashima-kun. Please bring them inside."

Awashima walked inside a few minutes later, and Reisi looked behind her expectantly for the visitor, but saw no one.

Then a little girl in a black-and-red Gothic-style dress stepped out silently in front of Awashima.

"This is Kushina Anna," Awashima said, her hand on the girl's shoulder. "I believe you've met before."

[to be continued]


	10. Anna

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reisi remembers the early days of the reformed SCEPTER4, Anna gets a surprise, Chisato makes a phone call, Awashima has a fangirl moment, and Suoh goes downtown again.

_"Captain, it's about Mizuchi Koushi..." Awashima's voice is tense._

_Reisi glances up from the puzzle pattern he's been working on for the past week. "What about him?"_

_"I hear he's petitioning His Excellency to return to the research facility."_

_Reisi presses his lips together. "Didn't take him long, did it? It will not happen."_

_"How can you be sure?"_

_"His Excellency has agreed that SCEPTER4 will oversee the hospital," Reisi says. "The Strains are our jurisdiction; if another Clan has administrative control over any project involving Strains, we're likely to end up with a reprise of the sort of research Mizuchi was carrying out in secret. More administrative layers means more chances to hide illegal activity, you see. That was why full control was ceded to SCEPTER4. I'll be interviewing all the researchers and getting rid of anyone I do not like. Even the Rabbits may not access it without written permission from me."_

_Awashima raises both eyebrows. "I can't imagine that sat well with His Excellency."_

_Reisi chuckles. "His Excellency did not like it in the least, but I managed to persuade him in the end. I could not persuade him to lock Mizuchi up for the abuse inflicted on the underground subjects, but one thing is certain: the facility is under SCEPTER4 control, and Mizuchi is not welcome there, under any conditions."_

_"It could be argued that such sweeping privileges might lead to abuses of power on SCEPTER4's part," Awashima says with a nervous peek at Reisi's PDA. "Besides, we cannot replace researchers so easily, can we?"_

_"Indeed, that first argument did arise," Reisi says. "But power is hardly something the current Blue Clan can boast of, wouldn't you agree, Awashima-kun?"_

_She glances at the massive Gold Clan emblem carved into the surface of Reisi's desk and says nothing. Reisi smiles at her._

_His opposition to Mizuchi's return is not without self-interest. Zenjou Gouki would surely slay him if he allowed it; he was livid when he learned that Mizuchi -- who had destroyed SCEPTER4's reputation when the truth about his experiments leaked out -- was allowed to live. If Reisi lets Mizuchi back into any operation under SCEPTER4's auspices, Zenjou will certainly deem Reisi unworthy of the Blue King's throne._

_But Awashima does not know of the complicated truce between Reisi and the man who once held her rank. Nor does she need to know._

_Reisi does not share Zenjou's fervent, if unspoken, wish for a return to SCEPTER4's former glory, not exactly. He knows nothing of it, for one thing; the organisation he has been rebuilding was a pitiful little group even before Shiotsu Gen disbanded it two years ago; a Clan in name only, answerable to the Gold King and subject to his whims._

_The Gold King will not easily cede control he's become accustomed to over a decade, but Reisi can be very patient. And he has a vision for SCEPTER4, though it might not match Zenjou's._

_"As for the other thing you mentioned, it is true that SCEPTER4 is a law enforcement organisation," he says to Awashima. "But nothing in our mandate precludes a research division."_

_Her eyes widen. "You mean to displace the Gold clansmen entirely? Force them out and replace them with researchers from the Blue?"_

_Reisi hides a grin and turns his attention back to the puzzle. "I am merely suggesting a possibility, Awashima-kun; please do not make such a concerned face."_

_After she takes her leave, he calls up Mizuchi's file and studies the pictures of his victims -- criminals mostly, but there is the suburban housewife who could liquefy anything, the teenager with precognitive powers, and the sad-eyed little girl HOMRA rescued._

_He remembered seeing her at Kusanagi's bar when he visited Suoh. How strange the world was. Judging from Mizuchi's notes on her abilities, she knew exactly what Reisi was the minute he walked inside, yet she did not try to warn Suoh or any of the others. Why? He will never know._

_Although her parents were murdered at Mizuchi's behest, he'd used Blue clansmen to carry out his orders. Reisi did not even know supernatural powers existed at the time, but as the head of SCEPTER4, he carries the organisation -- past, present, and future. He has to be able to answer even for past failures; that is the kind of leader he wants to be. Because of that, he hopes he never has to meet Kushina Anna face to face again._

_He does not know how to answer for what was done to her._

"Hello," Anna said, staring at the carpet.

"Good afternoon," Reisi said, rising. 

"Will you allow me to prepare tea for you?" He pointed to the tatami mats to his right.

Anna glanced in that direction and shook her head. "Thank you," she half-whispered.

As Reisi approached her, he noticed she was much thinner than when he'd last seen her. Paler, too. Her eyes bore the haunted cast he remembered from their first encounter. It hadn't been there in the secret photographs taken of her before Suoh's death. She clutched the front of her dress with both hands, so tightly her small hands turned white at the knuckles.

Reisi had been putting off dealing with her -- as the Red Clan no longer had a King or any powers to speak of, they should not have been in charge of one such as Anna. But powerful Strain or not, she was only a small child who had found a place to belong after her parents' deaths; ripping her away from it had seemed far too cruel to contemplate. Yet here she was.

"In that case, let us discuss your business here. How may SCEPTER4 assist you today?" He looked questioningly at Awashima, who gave a slight shake of her head. _So she doesn't know why the girl is here. Interesting. Awashima isn't one to just march a visitor in here without first learning their purpose._

Anna took a shaky breath and raised her head to gaze at Reisi with eyes like tiny sunsets. _Has her ability evolved enough to let her see inside my mind without her glass trinkets?_ he wondered.

"I'll come back to the hospital if you want me to," she said in a thin voice. "But please don't hurt anybody at HOMRA."

Reisi blinked at her in astonishment. "I beg your pardon?"

"You really don't know," Anna said, tilting her head to one side.

Reisi rounded the desk and approached her, then knelt on the carpet to avoid talking down to her. 

Awashima put her hand on Anna's shoulder. "Don't know what? Have you seen something with your-- your power?"

Anna shook her head, but did not look away from Reisi. "I have seen Saruhiko near the bar a lot. I tried and tried to see why he was there, but I can't. I thought you Blues sent him."

Reisi and Awashima exchanged looks. _She can't see why Fushimi is hanging around HOMRA?_

Reisi had been so preoccupied lately that it hadn't occurred to him that if Awashima had noticed that Suoh was still in Japan, Fushimi certainly must have done the same, but he didn't seem to know _where_ Suoh was -- the Munakata family home was probably the last place he would think to look. So he was keeping watch on the bar -- why? 

_If he means to harm Suoh..._ Reisi didn't let himself finish the thought. He could not raise a hand to one of his own people.

"Awashima, please see to it that Fushimi-kun's duties put him as far from HOMRA as possible," Reisi said. "I will discuss this matter with him privately at a later time." He looked back at Anna. "I assure you that SCEPTER4 does not mean to concern itself with your organisation. Provided they do not avail themselves of your special powers to conduct their business."

Anna's gaze was blank. 

"He means that those guys shouldn't be getting you to use your powers for their sake," Awashima clarified.

"Yes, thank you, Awashima-kun," Reisi said, somewhat sheepish. He had no idea how to speak to children; talking down to them seemed insulting, but speaking as he usually did inevitably made them stare at him the way Anna was just then.

Anna's fingers, which no longer clutched her dress, fiddled with the frilly black lace-work. "My powers don't really work, so it's fine."

"Don't really work?" Reisi asked. _Didn't she just say that she tried to use them to find out why Fushimi was shadowing Bar HOMRA?_

"I try not to use them," she amended. "They only get people killed." 

Her voice began to shake as she spoke, and Reisi had an idea that she had just told them something she hasn't dared say out loud in front of the HOMRA bunch. Because she didn't want them to worry about her. They'd be sure to tell her that the deaths of her parents, of Totsuka Tatara, of Suoh Mikoto -- that these things that happened to her were not her fault and had nothing to do with her powers. And they'd be right.

But she was just a little girl. Despite incredible potential as a Strain, she didn't have the emotional resources to process something as final as death without seeing a relationship between it and her own existence. And who could blame her, really? If the most well-adjusted adult saw four loved ones die in quick succession, it wouldn't be strange if they blamed themselves. _We center our world around those we love, and it is around them that it crumbles._

"Captain," Awashima said, her tone clipped. "I'm very sorry, but I am taking this child to your mother's home right now. If you intend to stop me, you will have to restrain me by force."

 _She is so much better than me at knowing what must be done,_ Reisi thought. He would have sat here for hours if anyone let him, offering Anna canned kindnesses and trying to figure out how to broach the subject of Suoh's whereabouts. It wasn't right to let her shoulder the burden of his death, not when Reisi knew how much it weighed. But to take her to Suoh wouldn't have entered his mind, because Reisi cared about Suoh a great deal more than he cared about Anna.

"Please don't say such scary things, Awashima-kun," Reisi said, smiling up at her. "I do not intend to hold you back, but I do insist that you allow me to accompany you. It is my home, after all."

Anna lifted a trembling hand to her face. Between her thumb and forefinger shone a red glass marble; she must have been clasping it in her hand over the dress. "I don't understand," she said, making no move to look through the marble. "What is at your house?"

Reisi hesitated. _Should I tell her before she sees him? What if he isn't home? What if he's on his way to my apartment? It's already past one o'clock._

"Suoh Mikoto," Awashima said.

*

Suoh and Chisato were sitting near the door open onto the back porch, the floor around them littered with an assortment of tools and fluorescent fixture bases.

"Mikoto!" Anna cried. She ran towards him, heedless of the mess on the floor, and somehow did not step on anything until she fell to her knees next to Suoh, her arms clutching his midsection as she buried her face against his side.

The pliers Suoh had been holding dropped to the floor with a _thud_ ; his other hand landed on top of Anna's head, his fingers catching in the decorative ribbon. He stared down at her shaking frame with a morose expression, and Reisi looked away, aghast at the flash of jealousy deep in his chest.

"Rei-chan, is that his daughter?" Chisato, who had in the meantime got up from the floor and joined Reisi and Awashima by the entrance, asked. "Is that why you two had trouble-- oh, excuse me." She straightened up and looked at Awashima. "I didn't notice we had another guest."

"Mother, this is Awashima Seri, my subordinate," Reisi said, grateful for the distraction. "Awashima-kun, this is my mother."

"Munakata Chisato," his mother added. "I'm very pleased to meet you, Awashima-san." Her smiling face changed abruptly to a look of utter confusion. "Rei-chan? These uniforms."  
 _Oh, shit._ Reisi had got so caught up in trying to explain everything to Anna on the way here that he'd forgotten about the uniforms.

"Those uniforms belong to SCEPTER4," Chisato said, looking up at Reisi with her eyes narrowed.

"Indeed," Reisi said, glancing at Awashima. She was staring at his mother with an awestruck expression Reisi didn't understand -- surely it wasn't that surprising that someone would know the SCEPTER4 uniform on sight.

"You work for SCEPTER4," Chisato insisted. "Why have you never told me this?"

"I-- Mother, I don't just work for SCEPTER4," Reisi said with resignation. "I am the commander." She would know what that meant. She would have to. She'd been involved in the Kagustu incident clean-up on the PR side; she would know that if Shiotsu Gen wasn't the leader, then a new King must have come forth.

Silently, Chisato reached into the back pocket of her jeans and took out her phone.

"Who are you calling--?"

"I'm busy right now, Rei-chan," she snapped, selecting a name from her address book and walking out into the corridor.

Reisi looked at Suoh, who was awkwardly patting Anna's back as she continued to sob quietly into his shirt.

"What do you mean, am I still alive? What kind of greeting is that? Like I'd die before your rickety ass!" Chisato yelled from the corridor. "Who are you calling a hag, you creepy old fart? Here I am happily retired, minding my own business just as I promised, and I find out you've been bullying my boy? What the hell were you thinking, making him keep it from me that he's the new Blue King?"

Reisi forgot about everything else and turned to the sound of her voice. He'd never heard his mother use such language with anyone, and judging from the things she'd just said, she was talking to none other than Kokujyōji Daikaku. He was sure of it mostly because no one else had ever told him to keep his King status from his mother.

"Uh-huh," Chisato said. "It's none of your business how I found out. He didn't tell me, if that's what you're wondering, so you'd better not try-- yeah. What?" She listened for a few moments. "No, I'm fine; he just worries too much." Her tone had softened considerably. "Is your foreigner friend still refusing to come down from that blimp of his, by the way?" Pause. "Oh. That's too bad. He'll turn up, I'm sure."

"Anyway, listen, I've got to go, but Rei-chan's getting married soon, so you'd better come to the wedding, or I'll rip out your skull and make it into an ashtray as a present for my son-in-law." All of this was delivered in Chisato's usual pleasant voice, which made it even scarier to Reisi than when she'd been shouting. 

He finally understood exactly what his father had meant when talking about his mother's 'outside face'.

"Yeah, I will. You too. Bye." Chisato flipped the phone shut and walked back into the room, looking perfectly composed. "What's with that face you're making, Rei-chan?"

Reisi cleared his throat. "You do realise that the person you were speaking to can literally crush you with his mind, don't you?"

"That geezer," Chisato said, frowning again. "And you! I can't believe you kept something so important from me, Rei-chan; I'm very disappointed."

"I'm sorry," Reisi said, glancing at Awashima and thinking that his image would never recover in her eyes. Awashima was blushing.

_Oh. She heard the part about me getting married. And the son-in-law. Damn it, why didn't I think about changing out of uniform?_

But Awashima wasn't even looking at him; her focus was on Reisi's mother. "I-- uh, I am sorry for asking so suddenly," she stammered. "But would it be okay to have your autograph?"

 _Autograph?_ Reisi lifted his glasses and rubbed one eye, then the other.

"My autograph?" Chisato asked, incredulous. "Nobody's ever asked me for such a thing before, Awashima-san. How about a doughnut instead?"

Reisi coughed. "Awashima-kun, why are you asking for my mother's autograph?"

She blushed deeper. "I'm terribly sorry, Captain; I forgot myself. I just didn't realise-- I mean." She took a breath. "Your mother was the first woman to hold the police commissioner title, and I've heard so much..." Awashima stopped speaking and looked down at her feet, completely flustered.

Chisato patted her arm. "I don't know what kinds of things you've heard but I'm sure they're all lies. I'm just an old lady." She turned to Suoh. "Mikoto-chan, that child looks half-starved."

Suoh and Anna were sitting side by side on the floor, staring at the three of them as though watching a movie. Chisato approached them and knelt in front of Anna, who shifted slightly, as if to hide behind Suoh.

"Don't be afraid," Chisato said. "Look, your hair is as white as mine is. Let's be friends."

*

After his mother bore Anna and Awashima off to the kitchen for doughnuts, Reisi finally looked Suoh in the eye. "Sorry," he offered, then explained briefly what had happened with Anna.

Suoh got up and walked to stand in front of Reisi as he talked. "Seems like it was meant to happen, doesn't it?"

"I suppose you could look at it that way," Reisi said. "I'm surprised she left your side at all."

"Anna will be fine," Suoh said with a shrug. "She did her marble trick on me while Auntie was lecturing that old fart."

"Really," Reisi said, his face growing hot. "You think it's appropriate to show a young child--"

"I didn't show her anything she shouldn't see," Suoh murmured, stepping closer. "And she's eleven, not four."

"If you say so," Reisi said, willing his heart not to race at Suoh's proximity, without success. "Shall we join them in the kitchen?" As much as he wanted to stay here and let Suoh do as he liked, his mother might let slip all manner of inappropriate things to Awashima about their relationship. Awashima would never ask, but--

Suoh put a hand on the wall on Reisi's left, barring his exit. "I'm gonna take Anna back to HOMRA tonight."

"I hoped you would," Reisi said. "It would be rather cruel to send her back alone, especially if you asked her not to tell them anything."

"I wouldn't do that to her," Suoh said, leaning in. "I _was_ going to come over to your place today, though. Guess that's out." His lips brushed Reisi's cheek.

"Really, Suoh, this isn't the time or the place," Reisi complained, placing his hand against Suoh's chest. He'd just wanted to feel Suoh's heartbeat, but all he could think about was the weapon at his hip, the way that weapon had lodged right where his palm was now, and a sudden wave of nausea swept him, and he pushed Suoh back. "I'm sorry. I need some air."

*

"Please don't cry," Reisi said to his mother for the fifth time. "It all worked out in the end, so please don't cry." He was deeply regretting having told her the whole story -- about Suoh, and HOMRA, and everything else before Suoh had come to her door two months ago. But he had felt so guilty about having kept his real work from her all this time that he'd felt compelled to be totally honest. They were alone in the house; Shimizu had taken Awashima, Anna, and Suoh back to the city two hours ago.

Chisato sniffed. "Rei-chan, you're really-- how do I say this? What are you made of that you've gone through such horrible things by yourself, never talking to anyone?"

Reisi shrugged. He'd just managed, somehow. He'd never been big on telling others what he felt. With most people, that just meant they had something to use against you when you least expected it. Still, the way she'd said it -- _what are you made of_ \-- made him feel unsettled. Would she think of him as some kind of monster now, the way everyone else did? 

He'd really rather have heard her story about how she'd come to be on such familiar terms with the Gold King, but that wasn't happening.

She covered his sword hand with both of hers and squeezed it. "You were a very late child; you know that. The doctor was sure my body used up my very last egg to make you. Everyone worried so much that you'd have some kind of deformity. I knew you'd be fine, though. From the day I realised I was pregnant, not menopausal -- I knew you'd be perfect. And you were. Miracle baby, everyone said. Now I wonder if I doomed you to this King business by waiting so long to have you."

"No, it doesn't work like that, so please don't worry," Reisi said, realising what she meant. "If you're born with a power, that makes you a Strain. Kings are normal people chosen by the Dresden Slate; nobody knows how or why. For all I know, the Slate chose me for the Blue _because_ Suoh was the Red already. Because it knew that I'd have to stop him one day."

He had never said that out loud before.

Chisato sniffed, let go of Reisi's hand, and dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief. "I can't believe you didn't tell me that he died."

"I didn't want you to be sad," Reisi said. "Besides, he's alive. If I'd told you he was dead and then he showed up here, that might've been even worse."

Pochi rolled up to them with a pot of sweet-smelling tea and two cups. "Pochi detected that Mistress's lacrimal apparatus has been especially active for thirty-six minutes. Pochi has prepared an infusion of chamomile."

Chisato smiled and patted the robot's dome. "Thank you, Pochi, that's very kind of you." She looked at Reisi as he poured her tea. "Listen, Rei-chan, don't ever cry alone, all right?"

"I haven't cried at all," Reisi said, hoping to reassure her, but for some reason she looked even sadder as her hands closed around the tea cup.

*

Reisi stretched his legs out off the back porch, breathed deeply of the night air, and took another look at his PDA. Eleven-thirty.

_He isn't coming back._

The thought had crept in a couple of hours ago, after his mother had gone to bed, and Reisi had tried ignoring it to the best of his ability, but facts were facts. Suoh had left around five. With traffic, Shimizu would have reached the city by six, six-thirty. 

A casual call to Awashima had confirmed it. They'd dropped Suoh and Anna off outside HOMRA at ten past six and made it back to HQ by supper time. At the time, Fushimi was playing solitaire in the rec room; Awashima had said she'd keep an eye on him to make sure he didn't do anything stupid. He hadn't wanted Suoh to return to HOMRA, after all.

Reisi checked the online police blotter again, but the stats were the same: no accidents or even crimes of any sort since early that morning. A rare peaceful day for Shizume City.

_He isn't coming back._

And why would he? HOMRA had been Suoh's home for years. Sure, it might have been true that Suoh had come back because of a desire to rebuild his bond with Reisi, but what was that compared to bonds that had never withered slowly until only pain remained? Or, in Suoh's case, nothing had remained at all. He hadn't been shy about admitting that he'd forgotten all about Reisi until he'd been about to die.

"He isn't coming back," Reisi murmured. 

The sharp jab of jealousy he'd felt when Anna had hugged Suoh made sense to him now. At the time, he'd felt ashamed for feeling jealous of a lonely little girl, ashamed of wanting Suoh to only care for Reisi. But it was clear now that he always guessed that Suoh's feelings for him, whatever they were, didn't run as deep as Reisi wanted them to. Of course he'd feel jealous of anyone who claimed Suoh's attention. The basis for jealousy was insecurity about the other person's feelings.

He had convinced himself he wasn't scared of Suoh leaving, but underneath the optimism -- which was uncharacteristic for Reisi to begin with -- the fear of being judged unworthy of Suoh's regard had lurked all along.

 _The way I pushed him away earlier probably was the last straw._ Reisi had been sure he was going to vomit, unable to stop thinking about his sabre in Suoh's chest. That was his own fault, for bringing that thing into the house. But he'd felt too ill to explain it to Suoh, and by the time he'd got his bearings after sticking his face into a bucket of well-water, Suoh had already gone to join the women.

_He isn't coming back._

Reisi got ready for bed, but he lay awake for a long time, watching the clock projection do its thing on the wall; a dot next to the hour digit blinked the seconds away dutifully. One fifty-six; three hours and four minutes until Reisi's day began.

He dreamt of the day Suoh died again. This time he was a crow in a tree, eyes greedy as the sabre punched a hole through Suoh. Watching the red, red blood splatter out of his chest and dribble out of his mouth in slow motion as he used his last breath to speak to Anna. Who was Anna? From his perch, Reisi could see that Suoh's killer is just a lifelike doll in fancy clothes, perhaps a robot. A tool that had performed its function beyond reproach. In the tree, Reisi laughed harshly -- _caw caw caw_ \-- the blare of the alarm. 

Despite the dream, he felt oddly energised -- if the nightmares were already back, then numbness wouldn't be far behind. That meant hope that he could go back to his normal everyday life again. 

Reisi got out of bed, cleaned his teeth, shaved his face, got into uniform. At least he didn't have to worry about changing, though he'd still need to go back to the apartment for Shimizu's sake.

He walked past Suoh's room on his way out and peered inside -- the futon was folded neatly in the corner. If Suoh had come back in the night, he was gone again. Reisi walked in, turned on the light, and had a look around. The sight of Suoh's worn clothes piled on the floor next to a chair cheered him up a bit, but he was struck by how few there were. Suoh had brought a change of clothes with him from London and bought more things during his stay, but there weren't even enough clothes to fill the tiny wardrobe. Clothes and a small duffel bag on the floor. _Just visiting_ , they seemed to say.

The notebook with Reisi's letters lay on the top shelf of the wardrobe. Reisi took it down, waited until the desire to hurl it at a wall had passed, then stowed it in the wide inner pocket at the bottom of his uniform jacket. This time, he would destroy it, with his own hands. 

He left the house and only stopped for a can of coffee at a vending machine near the station.

On the train, he thought about asking Shimizu to pick him up from the train station starting tomorrow. That wouldn't mean that much of a change in routine, and the station was closer to HQ anyway. Or he could just do away with the rule that the King must always be accompanied by a subordinate while on the clock. Whoever had targeted his life back at the start of his career hadn't tried again since then, and Reisi's control over his power had increased and become more refined. He could sense and stop a sniper's bullet now.

At the apartment, he fixed himself breakfast and turned on the early newscast as he ate and waited for Shimizu to arrive. He caught the tail end of the weather forecast -- sunny and hot, as if late summer in Shizume City could be anything but -- and then the international segment began.

"The Secretary-General of the United Nations announced that the Security Council would be moving forward with discussing a proposal for new regulations in the robotics sector that will ensure--"

Suoh stumbled out of the bedroom, still in the same clothes he'd been wearing yesterday.

"The TV's too damn loud," he complained.

[to be continued]


	11. Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reisi remembers a funny little cartoon frog, Suoh wants breakfast, the doctor is in, SCEPTER4 gossips, Awashima is invited to tea, Anna makes an observation, and signs are made to be disobeyed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that people with PTSD, panic disorder, or anxiety may find some or all of a short section of this chapter triggering. The passage starts with _Reisi's smile faded. "So she did."_ and ends with the next section break (*).

_Reisi's scrolling through his address book for a recently saved contact when Suoh's name catches his eye. His name alone is enough to make Reisi forget what he was trying to do; he flushes with shame. He thinks about the gleam of mirth in Suoh's eyes as he asked if Reisi took him for his boyfriend. He thinks about the messy floor of Suoh's bedroom and the chair Reisi toppled. He thinks about how he vibrated with excitement on the train trip to HOMRA and how he almost missed his stop on the train back after his life was rearranged._

_It's been almost three months since then, but he feels as though it happened last week. He hopes he will not always react like this whenever Suoh is brought up. But in the meantime, he might as well do something about it._

`Warning: if you block this contact, the number and associated email address will be deleted from the address book and all prior message history will be erased. This operation cannot be reversed. Continue?`

Yes.

_The phone displays a bug-eyed little frog hopping from wooden crate to wooden crate as it works. The crates turn grey as the frog leaves them, indicating deletion progress. Reisi should really change his phone theme to something a little more adult-like._

`Messages and logs have been successfully deleted.`

_A pang of regret sings in Reisi's chest: that's more than a decade's worth of correspondence gone. It feels like a waste, even though the mails they sent each other have never contained much substance._

Reisi picked up the remote and turned the TV volume down. "I didn't know you were here," he said, feeling ridiculous. Had he really just spent most of the last twelve hours coming to terms with Suoh never returning from HOMRA? He was so unaccustomed to jumping to conclusions that he hadn't even realised that was what he'd been doing.

Suoh walked into the living room, scratching the side of his head. "If you kept your phone turned on, you'd know. Sorry for borrowing your place without asking," he said between unconcealed yawns.

Reisi frowned. "You called me?"

Suoh nodded at the TV stand, where a phone Reisi didn't recognise lay plugged into the extension. "I tried calling you but it kept saying it couldn't connect. I sent a mail later, didn't you see it?"

 _Oh._ Even though Reisi had switched phones three times in the last couple of years, he'd migrated all his data, so the block on Suoh's number must've remained in effect all this time. _Should I tell him?_

Reisi pulled his phone out and decided there were things Suoh didn't need to know. The minutiae of how Reisi had coped with his loss, in particular. He navigated to the blacklist -- not much of a list, with only one number on it -- and removed the block.

`Add number and associated mail address to contacts in addition to unblocking?`

_Yes._

"I must have missed it," he said out loud as he typed in Suoh's name. "I get a lot of mails." That much was true.

Suoh sat down heavily next to him, and in this light Reisi could see a fresh bruise blooming beneath his right eye. "What happened to your face?"

"Izumo was pretty pissed," Suoh explained. "So I let him hit me."

"I see he didn't hold back." _Good_. Reisi had wanted to deck Suoh more than once over the last two months, and he wasn't sure the urge would ever vanish.

"More importantly, that looks good," Suoh said, leaning over Reisi's shoulder to sniff at the _nira-tama_ on his plate. His breath smelled sour, and the rest of him gave off the aroma of a man who'd taken a bath in a vat of whiskey and forgotten to rinse.

"You stink," Reisi told him, pocketing his phone. "There's a new toothbrush in the cabinet above the sink. Go and brush your teeth at least."

"If I do, will you make me breakfast?"

Reisi checked the time: forty minutes until Shimizu's arrival. "I'll think about it. Go on."

*

"I can't quite figure out how your return to HOMRA went," Reisi told Suoh as they were finishing breakfast and the weather man was back on the TV screen.

"Fine," Suoh said. "Thank you for the meal."

Reisi glanced at the bruise on Suoh's cheek. "Fine?" _Looks like he doesn't want to talk about it._

"This is nothing," Suoh said. "Mostly we just got drunk."

"You and Izumo?"

"Yata was there too, and Kamamoto." Suoh wrinkled his forehead. "Chitose, plus a couple of new guys. Anna went to Honami's place."

"Honami-sensei?" She had taught English at their high school; might've even been Suoh's homeroom teacher.

"Yeah. She's Anna's aunt." Suoh got up and picked up their plates. "Anyway, I didn't want to lug that stuff home all drunk," -- he gestured at three sealed boxes stacked by the window -- "so I borrowed your place."

"You could've just stayed the night at HOMRA," Reisi pointed out. He had been so distraught upon arrival that he'd noticed neither the boxes nor Suoh's phone. Failing to pay attention to his surroundings in this way both worried and irritated him.

"That's not my place any more," Suoh said and left for the kitchen.

As Reisi listened to Suoh washing dishes, a sense of unreality crept in on him. Was he really sitting in his living room after finishing breakfast with Suoh, about to head into work for the day? It was difficult to believe, even though he could clearly hear Suoh in the kitchen. On the other hand, it had been so easy to assume that Suoh had chosen HOMRA without any real evidence. What did that mean?

_You know damn well what it means._

"Reisi?" Suoh called.

Reisi's heart leaped upwards. _Reisi? Did he just--?_ "What?"

"How does the coffee maker work?"

Reisi got up, turned the TV off, and went to join Suoh. "It's just a regular drip type; you put the coffee in the top part with a filter, pour water in here, and push the button," he said as he pulled the coffee container out from a cupboard. "I was out of line asking you about HOMRA. I apologise."

"You're not out of line," Suoh said as he filled the carafe in the sink. "I didn't like lying to them is all."

Reisi stared at him. "What did you lie to them about?"

"You," Suoh said, shutting the water off and carrying the carafe to the coffee maker. "I didn't tell them anything about you. Because you don't want people knowing your business. Anna knows to keep quiet about it, but I'm not sure about the rest."

"I-- thank you, Suoh."

"I thought you said that if I used your first name, you'd use mine too."

Reisi glanced away. "That was then."

Suoh moved closer and peered into Reisi's face. "What is it?"

Reisi met Suoh's eyes. "I thought you were never coming back. Last night."

Suoh sighed. "Why would you think such a thing?"

"Because I don't trust you." Reisi had thought that saying it out loud would make him feel better, but it didn't. The look of disappointment that crossed Suoh's face made him feel even worse.

"Okay," Suoh said. "Fair enough."

"It's not, though," Reisi said. "It's not fair. I-- what if I can't trust you again? Ever?"

"Then you won't," Suoh said with a small shrug. "I can't ask you to."

Despite himself, Reisi smiled. "This _should_ be the part where you make all sorts of promises and try to reassure me, you know."

Suoh gave him a level look. "You can't eat a promise. That's what Mom always said."

Reisi's smile faded. "So she did."

Suoh put a hand on his shoulder and pulled him closer. Reisi's heart began to race, but it wasn't excitement -- his stomach roiled and he felt as though his airways were closing off. Then Suoh's other hand landed on his other shoulder, and Reisi's was back amid snow falling on fresh blood -- Suoh's blood. His sword hand curled around the hilt of a sabre that wasn't there, and that arm buzzed with the strength of the blow he'd delivered -- a clean stroke right through ribs, flesh, gristle, heart. The sudden chill in the air hit him so hard his body trembled.

Blue Aura surged up and through him the way it did whenever he was injured. Restless, it saturated every part of him, living lightning trapped in mortal flesh. _But I'm not injured._ The thought was distant, as though put forth by someone else, some other Reisi from some other world; the real Reisi was a crow in a tree a squirrel in the bushes not _there_ not in this body with its dry mouth cramping chest shaking hands dizzy head.

He heard Suoh's voice from somewhere past the curtain of tears veiling his eyes -- _when had that happened?_ \-- past the heartbeat pounding in his ears; he _pushed_ and freed himself and fled, the way he'd wished he could have fled from the Ashinaka High island, from his duty to kill. _I have to get away or I'll die too,_ that other Reisi whined from his own world.

Stairwell, pavement, side street, a cat prowling through a maze of garbage bags. Its yellow eyes flashed out of the grey of the morning and startled Reisi into stopping, into trying to catch his breath.

He pressed his forehead and both hands against a wall; the stone was cool against his skin despite the late summer heat creeping into the city -- the stone was real. Reisi was real. The nightmare wasn't. His fingers dug uselessly into the spaces between bricks -- solid. Real. Slowly, his throat opened up, his breathing and heartbeat slowed, and his stomach gave up trying to empty itself.

_What just happened to me? What the hell was that?_

His phone buzzed.

"H-Hello?"

"Boss?" It was Shimizu. "Are you going to be much longer? This parking robot is cursing my ancestors even though I have your exemption sticker on the dash. It's making me a little nervous."

"Yes," Reisi said, straightening his back. "I am on my way. I am very sorry to have kept you waiting."

*

Doctor Harada shone a light into Reisi's left eye, then into the right.

"Physically, you're fine," she said after typing something into a tablet held aloft by an orderly-robot. "From what you have described, you suffered a panic attack. I'm guessing you've never experienced anything like this in the past."

"Never," Reisi said.

"What were you doing when it happened?"

"Just talking with, ah, a friend."

"Has this person ever hurt you? Behaved abusively, for example?"

Reisi's first impulse was vehement denial, but he wouldn't get anywhere by pretending like Suoh had nothing to do with what had happened that morning. "I wouldn't call it abuse, just a rather complicated past."

"I see. Well, the good news in your case is that it's unlikely to happen again, whatever the cause," Harada said. "Blue Aura will take care of you as long as you take care of it; that doesn't just apply to illness and physical injuries. Now that you've had an attack, Blue Aura should have rebalanced your brain chemistry as needed to prevent another one."

"Is that certain?"

Harada looked at him over the top of her glasses. "You know the answer to that better than I do."

Reisi smiled. "I suppose that's true, isn't it?" In truth, he had no idea. If Blue Aura could protect him from the ghosts in his mind, why hadn't it stopped the nightmares? Why did it let him suffer through losing Suoh -- to HOMRA, then to death? But telling Harada about those things was out of the question.

"You're very lucky, you know. Having this thing protect you from everything."

"That's what you say every time, Harada-sensei."

She clicked her tongue. "You say that as if you're here on a regular basis. Speaking of which, you missed your annual check-up again, so since you're already here, go and get some bloodwork done sometime this week. I'm sending the requisition to your PDA."

Reisi started to put his shirt back on. "I don't suppose I've got a choice in the matter."

"Not even a hint of one," she said. Then, looking up from the tablet, she gave him a very serious look. "These kinds of incidents are quite common, though less severe than in your case, but most people are so embarrassed that they don't seek treatment. If it does happen again for whatever reason, please be sure to see me about it."

Reisi finished buttoning his shirt and pulled on the uniform jacket. "Oh, is there a medicine that can prevent such things from happening?"

"I'd recommend psychotherapy, actually. The available medication only works to relieve symptoms, not treat the underlying cause."

 _Therapy? If I'm going to disclose my feelings to an outsider, I'd rather go to Nozomi-san or that cat child and have them wipe my memories away._ "I'll consider my options; thank you, Harada-sensei. Let us hope that your hypothesis is correct and no treatment will be necessary."

He had Shimizu drive to the apartment after they left the hospital, to retrieve his weapon. Upon arrival that morning, he'd placed it on its stand near the entrance the way he always did. During his panicked flight, the sabre had been far from his mind.

The weapon was where Reisi had left it. Suoh was gone, so were the three boxes. The part of Reisi's mind that had convinced him Suoh would never be back from HOMRA insisted that Suoh had given up, had decided he wanted nothing to do with someone as broken as Reisi.

The phone in Reisi's pocket had a different idea.

`You okay?`

The message had come through about an hour after Reisi had arrived at the office and asked Awashima to book him an appointment with Harada.

Reisi hadn't known how to respond; still didn't. He'd been tempted to just block Suoh's number all over again to avoid more mails -- or worse, a phone call. But Suoh didn't need to call him to reach him.

Sabre back where it belonged, Reisi returned to headquarters and was unsurprised to find it abuzz with rumours about his hastily scheduled hospital visit.

"I thought he couldn't get sick," one of the Minato brothers -- Reisi could tell them apart by face, but not by voice -- was saying as Reisi walked past the intel office.

"Someone said that he used so much power bringing Suoh Mikoto back from the dead that his Weissmann level's on the brink now," Kamo put in.

"I have not brought anyone back from the dead, Kamo-kun," Reisi said, stepping into the room. Six clansmen turned to him, identical looks of dismay on their faces. "I assure you that my Weissmann level is nowhere near dangerous. Unlike Suoh Mikoto, I use my power with great discretion. Please get back to work, all of you."

"You made the Captain mad," someone muttered as he left the room.

 _There_ was another can of worms Reisi had never wanted opened. Suoh's return had been the talk of the morning until Reisi had booked the appointment with Doctor Harada. Soon enough, they would all know that SCEPTER4 had been instrumental in returning Suoh to Shizume City. Reisi would have to find a way to address the matter so that the anti-Gold Clan faction didn't do anything rash. As nice as it was to have people fanatically loyal to the Blue in his corner, their displeasure at being essentially puppets dancing at the Gold King's slightest finger-twitch exceeded even Reisi's own, and too many of them did not share his cautious nature.

Reisi reached his office and took off his glasses, placing them on the desk atop his unfinished puzzle. He put his face in his hands and tried to focus on the right words to say at the next assembly, but all he could think about was Suoh. What had he thought when Reisi had pushed him away so violently and rushed out? What was he making of Reisi's failure to reply to his mail?

A nasty little voice inside him maintained that Suoh deserved to see the ugly side of what he had wrought, but it was a voice easily quelled. Reisi didn't want Suoh to be unhappy. Until now, he hadn't even realised how happy it had made _him_ to have Suoh back, even if they just sat in the Munakata living room together, Suoh working the remote as though training for an Olympic channel-surfing event, Reisi reading the daily activity reports and occasionally glancing up at the screen.

But beneath the peace lay pain suppressed and ignored for so long it had become a friend. Would Reisi ever get to a point where he stopped doubting everything Suoh said and did? _I don't trust you_ , he had said, but it wasn't even that simple. Trust could be rebuilt. His wariness of Suoh was like the clothes on his back: he shed them occasionally as needed, but he'd never think of leaving the house without them.

"Captain, I've got those-- oh, I'm very sorry."

Reisi looked up, wondering what kind of face he would be making if he hadn't slapped a smile on as soon as he'd heard Awashima's voice. "No trouble at all, Awashima-kun. I was just trying to think about how to deal with the internal fallout from the Suoh matter. Please, let me make you some tea."

It would calm him down, excessive amounts of azuki paste or no.

*

His mother was fiddling with the light fixtures again, and she wasn't alone, but Suoh wasn't her companion this time.

Kushina Anna sat next to Chisato, watching her pore over a diagram of some sort. Pochi hovered nearby, rearranging multi-coloured pieces of cardboard and muttering to itself.

"Rei-chan!" Chisato said. "Sorry, I'm a little busy trying to make sense of the wiring here."

"Hello," Anna said, her eyes calm. "Are you sad because I'm here?"

Taken aback, Reisi forgot the politician's smile. "Of course not. I am only a little bit surprised to see you again so soon."

"If you're allowed to have friends over, then so am I," Chisato said without looking up from the diagram. "Right, Anna-chan?"

Anna gave a nod so tiny someone not watching her very closely would have missed it.

"Pochi, be a dear and warm up Rei-chan's food for him, will you?"

"I am grateful for the work," said the robot. It gathered up the cardboard collection and rolled out.

Reisi smiled. "Oh, am I in the way?"

"You are if you know nothing about motion sensors," Chisato said. "Which you don't. Mikoto-chan said he'd put it up later, so we're getting it ready."

"Where is he?" Reisi asked.

"Went off somewhere with that smooth-talking friend of his who brought Anna-chan over," Chisato said. "He'll be back soon. Now quit distracting me and go eat your dinner."

Shaking his head with rueful amusement, Reisi left the room.

"Why is the King so sad?" he heard Anna ask. He paused to listen.

"Eh? Wasn't he smiling happily?"

"That wasn't a happy smile at all, Granny."

"Is that so? Maybe I have forgotten what a happy smile looks like, so why don't you show me one right now?"

Reisi continued on his way. He wondered if Anna could sense his inner turmoil without the aid of her marbles. If so, her powers must have increased significantly over the last six months, and he would not be able to put off dealing with her for much longer. A Strain with such powerful sensory abilities would be a target for all manner of unsavoury types wanting to use her. Such people hung around the HOMRA bar far too often.

 _Sad,_ she had called him. _Is that what I am?_

"Do I look sad to you?" he asked Pochi when he reached the kitchen.

"As you think, so you shall become," Pochi replied. Reisi shooed it towards the microwave.

 _Sad._ Why would Reisi be sad? Frightened, perhaps. Confused. Embarrassed. But sad? He wasn't sad.

"Two can brave what one cannot," Pochi opined, rolling up with the food.

Reisi's throat constricted, and he realised why Anna was right. He'd known all along -- he just hadn't wanted to think about it. Performing the tea ceremony had given him the mental stillness necessary to see his way to a resolution.

His inner toddler demanded that he should think it over more, maybe perform the tea ceremony another thousand times. But no matter how long he waited, the answer would remain the same. 

He couldn't make Suoh happy.

The clarity was almost blinding. Yes, he could let Suoh have what he said he wanted -- Reisi's hand, Reisi's heart, Reisi's bed. But Reisi was too weighed down by the past; it would never be far from his thoughts. As intoxicating as they found each other now, the excitement would fade; that was how life went. People became used to good things until they seemed like regular things.

After that, Suoh's happiness would wear away like ice inside a warm room. Even if they, out of sheer stubbornness, stuck it out alongside each other, they would both be bitterly unhappy until the end: Suoh because waking up from pleasant dreams is always a disappointment, and Reisi because all he had were nightmares.

No matter how much the past burdened him, he had a clear view of the future.

_Sad._

The lump in Reisi's throat grew painful.

 _Never cry alone_ , his mother's voice urged.

Reisi got up from the table, his food untouched, and left the house. He was not going to cry, now or ever -- the best way to ensure it right now was to go out in a public place.

He walked aimlessly through streets he had once known, expecting to barely recognise anything but finding that not much had changed at all. Maybe it was always like that on the outskirts of any big city: life moved a little slower, time was a little gentler.

He passed the entrance to the temple where many years ago there had been a New Year's Eve festival and two little boys had become friends. A few people wandered the grounds, but it was very quiet, just the sort of place Reisi had wanted to find to calm his mind and let himself breathe.

As he neared the Hill of Tears, Reisi spotted a _No Trespassing_ sign at the foot of the stairs. When had it gone up? He hadn't been here in too long.

 _If they didn't want people using these stairs, they shouldn't have put them here,_ Suoh's young voice echoed in his head.

Reisi sidestepped the sign and climbed the stairs. The railing was still broken, though someone had bound it to the intact portion with chicken wire. It must have been done a long time ago -- the wire was rusted brown, the same colour as the flecks in the snow on the day Reisi and Suoh had had their first grand adventure.

_If only all of our past were so nice to remember._

Reisi gazed out towards the horizon. If he stood here long enough, he could see the sunset. That would be nice.

His phone rang -- _Munakata_ , the call display read; his entry for the house line. _Mother must've noticed that I'm gone._ "Yes?"

"Where are you?" Suoh asked. 

_Did he call from the landline because he thinks I won't pick up if I know it's him?_

What did it matter?

They had been well-met here on a lovely winter's day. It was good that it should all end here on a lovely summer evening. _A clean break._

"Hill of Tears," Reisi said. "Do you remember it?"

"Yeah."

"Why don't you come too? It's a beautiful view."

Suoh showed up ten minutes later, a bit winded. "Didn't take you for the sort to disobey no-entry signs," he said. "What a nostalgic spot."

"I can't marry you," Reisi said.

[to be continued]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _nira-tama_ are eggs scrambled with chives (and sometimes other ingredients); I couldn't find a decent English equivalent so I just kept the romanised Japanese name.


	12. Tears

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reisi remembers his mother's first-aid kit and takes a chance, Suoh has good eyesight, Awashima drinks tea on standby, and Fushimi totally doesn't eavesdrop.

_"This is Suoh Mikoto," Reisi tells his mother when the two of them reach her. "He found me."_

_"Oh, were you lost, Rei-chan? I thought you went off on your own." Chisato tips up the brim of her fancy hat a bit to peer at Suoh with a smile. "Thank you for finding him, Mikoto-chan. It's very nice to meet you."_

_"Nice to meet you," Suoh mumbles, blushing for some reason._

_"Mother, does this place have a first aid station or something?" Reisi asks. "Suoh hurt his hand."_

_"I'm sure I saw one down that way," Chisato says, pointing towards the entrance. "Let's go there together."_

_"Not that place. They know who my mother is," Suoh says, edging away._

_Chisato glances at Suoh. "Why, who is your mother?"_

_"She runs the soba stall," Suoh explains. "They'll wanna go get her, and she doesn't have time to be distracted right now."_

_"Let me see your hand, Mikoto-chan," Chisato says._

_He gives her a suspicious look but complies. Chisato examines the scrape, which has begun to swell and redden, and digs into her massive purse. "I've got a few things in here that should help. How did this happen, anyway?"_

_Reisi explains what happened as she extracts a zippered pouch from the depths of her bag and produces several disinfectant cloths sealed into squares of waterproof paper, a tube of ointment, and a wad of band-aids held together by a bright purple rubber band._

_"I see how it is now -- so you've gone and had yourselves an adventure, haven't you? Let's go over there," -- Chisato points to the tree stump Reisi was sitting on earlier -- "so we aren't in people's way."_

_She wipes Suoh's hand carefully with a disinfectant cloth, then another, applies ointment to the jagged edges of the wound and then puts three band-aids across it. "Now put a glove or mitten over that and don't take it off until you're home," she lectures. "And don't even think about getting into the bath before you show your hand to your mother, all right?"_

_Suoh, who has been making a stoic face even though the alcohol-soaked cloths must have hurt like hell, nods, almost timidly. "Thank you very much."_

_"No need for thanks -- I carry this stuff around and never get to use it because my own son is too serious to get himself scraped up from climbing on things and falling off them," Chisato says with a laugh._

_"Mother, could you please not sound like you wish I'd injure myself more often?" Reisi says, bristling._

_Watching her dress Suoh's wound made him flash back to the Hill of Tears. The enormity of what might have happened had he not been strong enough, or quick enough -- or if the edge of the platform had crumbled under Suoh's weight -- strikes him all at once, without warning, and he starts to cry._

_Chisato's eyes take on a panicked cast and she hunkers down before Reisi, grabbing his face in her hands. "I'm sorry, sweetie, I didn't mean to say I wanted you to hurt yourself." The brim of her hat bumps into his forehead, and Reisi feels inexplicably better._

_"It's not because of what you said," Reisi explains. "You could've_ died _," he tells Suoh accusingly over his mother's shoulder. He knows he must look like a total loser, but Father always says that tears purify the soul, and Reisi doesn't want his soul to become dirty._

_Suoh nods wordlessly. "Then it's good that you were there, right?" He doesn't seem to be making fun of Reisi; his eyes are clear and steady._

_Reisi wants to protest that they would never have gone up there if it weren't for him, but his mother thrusts a handkerchief at him. He hides his face in it, glasses and all._

Reisi stared down across the temple grounds at the spot where the three of them had stood that day. The tree stump was still there. Fourteen years ago, it had seemed much bigger. _Perspective._

"Is it because of this morning?" Suoh asked, and Reisi turned to look at him. Suoh's blank-faced expression hadn't changed. "I went after you, but--"

"It's not that," Reisi interrupted. _He thinks I expect him to wipe my nose for me?_ "I-- there isn't room for you, Suoh. By my side, I mean. It's better if we part ways here."

Suoh flinched. "I don't believe you."

"That's entirely your prerogative," Reisi said. The lump in his throat was returning, just when he'd thought he had regained control of his emotions. "Nevertheless, I had promised you an answer. At no time did I even insinuate that it would be in the affirmative. Now I have given you my answer and there is nothing further to discuss."

Suoh blinked at him. "You have a habit of using really fancy words when you're trying to hide how you feel."

 _He's noticed?_ "I am not hiding anything at all," Reisi said out loud. "This is just how I choose to speak. You've made light of my speaking style many times in the past, in case you've forgotten." 

Having this discussion out here instead of in the house made everything so much easier. 

He could lie.

Suoh turned to gaze out from the platform. Below, a couple of groups of tourists milled around in the central square, and a few people strolled along the paths leading to the various temple buildings. Sunset crept nearer; the gates would be closing soon.

"What did I do?" Suoh asked, still staring at the tourists below.

Reisi wished he could touch Suoh's hand, tell him he was sorry and that he hadn't meant it. But that, though true, would be merely self-serving. "You didn't do anything wrong," he said out loud. He thought carefully, then added, "I just do not think all this is worth the aggravation it is causing me."

"Aggravation," Suoh said. "That's what it is for you, huh."

"That is correct," Reisi confirmed. "Additionally, I don't believe I owe you any explanations whatsoever."

Better to hurt him a little now than let him be hurt a lot later, in the inevitable future when Suoh finally realised that Reisi was never going to be okay again. Reisi didn't mind being the bad guy now; it would help Suoh move on.

Suoh heaved a sigh. "Can't argue with that. I'll get out of your hair, then."

Reisi nodded. "Thank you for understanding my feelings." _He makes it sound as if it's no problem, but he's always been like that. Nearly falling to his death? No problem. Breaking ties with his oldest friend? No problem. Destroying half the city in his quest for revenge? No problem._

Suoh walked back towards the stairs; Reisi followed him. He wanted to watch him go.

Suoh stopped. His back still turned, he said, "Reisi?"

The sound of his name in Suoh's voice cut right through Reisi's heart. "Please don't call me that." 

"Are you sure you won't change your mind?"

 _I asked you that once, Suoh. I asked you to change your mind and you wouldn't, and then I had to kill you._

"I am quite sure."

His voice wanted to waver; Reisi didn't let it, pronouncing each syllable very carefully, willing his eyes not to sting. _Just a little bit longer._ Just until Suoh was out of sight. Then he could cry, public place or no. Reisi no longer believed that tears purified the soul -- he'd shed many in childhood, and yet there were stains upon his conscience. But this time he was sure that if he held it in much longer, his heart would stop from the effort.

Suoh's shoulders slumped forward for a brief instant, but he straightened his back and began to descend.

Reisi clenched his jaw and let the tears come quietly as he watched Suoh walk unhurriedly down the first sloping flight of stairs. When they'd been small, with shorter legs, the trip had seemed much longer. Now, Suoh reached the smooth-worn earth landing in less than thirty seconds. Once he started down the second flight, he'd disappear from view within moments. Reisi blinked the tears out of his eyes to make sure he didn't miss a moment of this. This was his doing; he had to see it through. 

The tears rolled down, seeping past the lower rim of his glasses. Reisi wished he could take the glasses off so they wouldn't get stained, but then he wouldn't be able to see.

Reisi had spent a good portion of his life chasing Suoh -- not the real one, the one in his mind. Now that he had chased the real Suoh _away_ , he had a responsibility to remember it well. He needed to impress upon himself the memory of being one hundred per cent responsible for this. That way, once the immediate pain wore off, even if he had second thoughts, he wouldn't dare to bother Suoh with them.

Suoh stopped on the landing and turned around. Reisi thought about raising his hand in a sarcastic little wave, just to make sure Suoh got the message, but he wasn't sure his hand wouldn't shake. He couldn't even conjure up the politician's smile -- all he could muster was a sad little smirk that probably looked as bitter as he felt. He was glad Suoh was too far to see his face clearly. It was all he could do to keep his back straight. Just letting the tears flow wasn't doing anything for the golf ball in his throat. Reisi clenched his teeth and breathed carefully through his nose.

Suoh stared at him for another few moments and then started back up the stairs, two at a time, so quick Reisi didn't even have time to think about how to hide his face.

Suoh put one arm around Reisi's neck and pressed his cheek to Reisi's. He slid his other arm across the middle of Reisi's back, pulling him in. "Now I really don't believe you," he muttered.

Reisi knew he should push him away, think of an excuse, but his words had dried up, and Suoh's embrace was too warm to deny. 

"I'm not giving either of us a chance, am I?" Reisi whispered.

"No kidding."

"How did you know?" Reisi asked, his voice catching.

"I saw your face."

Oh. Suoh had good eyesight; when Reisi had assumed that Suoh couldn't see his face from the landing, he had been imagining standing in Suoh's place without glasses on. _Perspective._

Harada had been right -- Blue Aura had put whatever had gone wrong in his brain back where it was supposed to be. Of the wildfire fear he'd felt that morning when Suoh had tried to hug him, only a faint trepidatious echo remained.

The realisation that he wouldn't experience such a horrible thing again demolished the last of his restraint, and Reisi cried, though these were not the ugly body-wrenching sobs he'd dreaded. Like fourteen years ago, these were tears of relief. He was relieved Blue Aura had helped him. He was relieved that Suoh hadn't walked away. For the first time since his mind had taken him to the gloomy bleakness of the only future he could imagine, Reisi began to feel like maybe there was hope.

When he calmed down enough to speak, Reisi tried to extricate himself, but Suoh held onto him, his expression mulish.

"Please let go," Reisi said.

"Nope."

"I need to clean my glasses."

"So clean them. Your hands are free."

Sighing, Reisi took off his glasses with one hand and pulled his handkerchief out with the other, then reached around Suoh and wiped the glasses down.

"This is silly," Reisi said after replacing the streaked glasses on his face -- he'd got them dry, at least -- and letting his arms fall back to his sides. "I'm not going to run away, so please let me go."

"Tell me why you want to break up."

 _Break up? We're not really together, you know._ "I-- I'm broken, Suoh. I don't think I will ever not be, when it comes to this kind of thing. It's wrong for me to be with anyone, least of all you."

"I don't care if you're broken."

Reisi sniffed. "I hope you don't think you can fix me."

"I can't even fix a washing machine," Suoh growled. "I don't care if you're broken or been with ten thousand guys or whatever. I want you with me. That's it. That's all."

"But you'll just end up unhappy."

Suoh took a deep breath, exhaled. "For a smart guy, you're really an idiot."

Reisi shifted from foot to foot. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Only idiots think they can predict the future," Suoh returned. "You let people in, you take a chance that you'll end up unhappy. But you let 'em in anyway. Otherwise nobody would ever make friends or... anything."

"That's a bit difficult to accept from a guy who takes pride in his reputation for being scary," Reisi said.

Suoh snorted. "I didn't say let _everyone_ in. That kind of happy-asshole crap was what got Totsuka killed. Trusted everybody to have good intentions. No sense of danger. Shit."

 _He blames himself,_ Reisi realised. _Probably thinks he should have rejected Totsuka and beat him up to teach him a lesson about messing with dangerous people. Thinks since Totsuka ended up taming the most dangerous guy in town, that caused him to let his guard down even more._

Reisi placed both hands on Suoh's chest. "It wasn't your fault."

"What, besides predicting the future, you can read minds too? What a busy guy," Suoh said, but there was no bite in his voice, and Reisi knew he'd guessed correctly. 

It struck him that he wasn't the only one here who could tell what the other was thinking. They may have both changed over the years, but somehow they still understood each other. What more, Suoh was the only person in Reisi's life who understood what it meant to be King. _Why would I throw that away so easily?_

"Fine," he said. "I won't talk about the future. But don't blame me if you end up miserable."

"You're the one who's miserable," Suoh retorted. "After this morning, I thought maybe you'd be better off if I disappeared."

"What happened this morning is called a panic attack," Reisi offered, somewhat grudgingly. "Nothing you could have done."

"I know," Suoh said. "One of our guys got like that whenever a room went dark suddenly. It first happened after an earthquake when we lost power. Yata and Kamamoto dragged him to the hospital as he was freaking out; the doctors just gave him happy pills and sent him to a head shrinker. Totsuka looked it all up and told everybody what to do next time." Suoh paused, then added, "I wasn't really listening, though. I'll ask Izumo about it."

"That's not necessary," Reisi said, newly mortified. The last thing he wanted was Kusanagi wondering why Suoh suddenly needed advice on dealing with panic attacks in other people. "It will not happen again. Being the primary vessel for Blue Aura has advantages, so I do not require any -- uh -- head shrinking."

Suoh's eyes widened a bit, then he nodded. "I came after you but you hogged the elevator, and by the time I got down the stairs, you were in the wind. When one of your goons pulled up to the curb, I sneaked back inside so he wouldn't ask you weird questions."

"How thoughtful." Reisi pushed lightly against Suoh's chest with his hands, and this time Suoh let him free. "So what made you decide I'm not better off without you?"

"Nothing," Suoh said. "That's not for me to decide. I thought you were serious when you said I was just an aggravation. That's why I was really gonna leave." Suoh's eyes searched Reisi's face. "Will you take it back? The thing you said about parting ways?"

"Yeah, I will," Reisi said. "But not the part from before, about needing time. Let's go home, Mikoto."

*

The Minato brothers carried the folding table out of the group vehicle and placed it next to Reisi. Behind them came Akiyama with the thermos and a box of cups. A pitiful way to drink tea, but Fushimi always complained so much that Reisi brewed tea while on standby that it was easier to just give in. Fushimi would probably condemn the tea-drinking itself next, but Reisi was not going to budge on that. Besides, he had plans for Fushimi, and if those came through as intended, he'd be too busy to find fault with his superiors.

_Or so one might hope._

"They're going in now, Captain," Awashima said after listening intently to indistinct squawking from her earpiece. "He says the place is abandoned, but I believe it's a trap. If you would let me--"

Reisi raised a hand. "No, I would like to see how Enomoto-kun handles leadership on the ground." He took a drink of his tea and, upon seeing Awashima's perplexed face, continued. "Our ranks are swelling too fast. You are supposed to be my right hand, yet you're spending more and more of your valuable time on petty matters like disciplinary action. Our fourth-quarter budget's already a week late."

Awashima's cheeks turned pink. "Captain, I am terribly sorry, I--"

Reisi waved her off again. "Please, Awashima-kun. It is not your fault that you have too many responsibilities. That's simply evidence of poor management; last time I checked, you were not your own manager."

Awashima inclined her head. "No, sir."

"Please don't be shy and help yourself to some tea. As I was saying, our numbers are increasing, so we're going to need to alter the command structure by adding another tier of officers, each of whom will be responsible for a division. I believe we can reasonably expect to implement this by mid-winter. I didn't intend to keep it a secret from you, by the way -- I have only just started to take the first steps."

Awashima, who had poured herself tea and taken several small sips, nodded with a thoughtful expression. "That's why you had Fushimi lead the sortie against the Greens last week?"

Reisi nodded. "What a nasty business. Certainly, it was only a matter of time before they got angry enough at my continued refusals to let them see the Gold Clan's research materials at the hospital, but surely they should have had the sense to ask the Gold Clan for that kind of thing."

Awashima averted her eyes, and Reisi guessed what she wanted to say: that he knew as well as she did that no Gold clansman would listen to the Greens; the King least of all. Some matter concerning the past.

Reisi was only beginning to learn to let go of the past, so he had some sympathy for those involved, whoever they were. But he was just not sympathetic enough to let the Greens get away with trying to stain SCEPTER4's reputation.

"By the way, Captain, about that time, two weeks ago..."

"The Kushina Anna matter?"

"Yes, well, not quite -- I understand you're taking personal responsibility for handling her case. I just, ah, wanted to offer my congratulations."

Reisi smiled in confusion. "I beg your pardon?"

"I happened to overhear the conversation your mother had with His Excellency, and I understand that you have made plans to marry."

"Oh," Reisi said, setting his teacup down on the table. He had forgotten all about Awashima even being in his house, never mind overhearing that telephone call.

He thought about Mikoto not letting everything end at the place where they'd first met. 

_"I want you with me. That's it. That's all."_

He thought about Mikoto taking his mother's side last week when she'd lectured Anna on the importance of going to school. The child -- who had become a regular visitor at the Munakata home -- hated school and had announced that she would not return after summer break ended.

_"If you don't go on to finish high school like a normal person, you'll end up a delinquent."_

_"You finished high school and you still became a delinquent. Also, I am not a normal person."_

She'd held her own against Mikoto but let herself be bribed by three new red dresses Chisato promised to sew for her.

Reisi thought about Mikoto climbing into his bed last night, after Reisi had told him about the content of his nightmares as they'd smoked on the back porch.

_"If you wake up from one and I'm there, that's better, right?"_

He thought about Mikoto grouchy and annoyed this morning when Reisi's alarm clock went off at five.

_"I warned you this would happen."_

_"Yeah, but you didn't even_ have _a nightmare."_

He thought about Mikoto and smiled.

"Thank you very kindly for your thoughtfulness, Awashima-kun. However, my mother is sometimes prone to exaggeration. There are no plans quite yet, though there is a strong possibility that things may turn out that way."

"He's obviously lying," Fushimi announced from the steps of the armoured vehicle. "Come on, Boss, who's the lucky guy?"

Reisi was glad he'd put his teacup down, because he would have certainly dropped it otherwise.

Awashima's eyes flashed in Fushimi's direction. "What have I told you about sneaking around, you impossible child? Eavesdropping _again_?"

"I'm not eavesdropping," Fushimi protested. "I just came out for some fresh air and happened to overhear your conversation. It's not my fault you didn't keep your voice down, Awashima."

Awashima clicked her tongue.

Reisi continued to stare at Fushimi. _How the hell does_ this guy _know I would marry a man?_

*

"Thank you as always, Shimizu-kun," Reisi said as he got out of the car.

"I'll see you at the train station tomorrow morning, boss."

"Yes, see you then. Have a good evening."

Reisi took the stairs up to his apartment instead of the elevator. He had skipped the training session at the dojo that morning due to an unscheduled appointment with the police department people; the absence of exercise had made him feel strange for the rest of the day. Sprinting up seven flights of stairs was a poor substitute for an hour of sword practice, but it would have to do.

As he ascended, he took mental stock of the things he needed to do in the apartment: pack up the two spare uniforms he still kept there, clean out and disconnect appliances, call the satellite provider to cancel his service, give the potted primrose to the caretaker, call the moving company and arrange for them to come and pick up the bed on Saturday. That double-sized bed was the one thing he missed about living here. 

Especially after last night's visitor to the old, narrow bed in his room at home.

It was too late to call the power and phone companies today, so they were on tomorrow's list. 

After Reisi unlocked the door and walked inside, a loud explosion greeted him, followed by a celebratory jingle. Both sounds had come from the living room. Reisi placed his sabre on the stand -- _there_ was another item to disassemble and pack -- and, loosening his shirt collar, walked in to find Mikoto on the floor, controller aloft, blowing up a freaky-looking alien thing on the TV screen. 

[to be continued]


	13. Play

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reisi remembers a video game, Mikoto wants the whole thing, and three's company.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is a bit later than usual; I had some unexpected things come up. Next week's chapter might also go up around Sunday evening, but I'll try my best for late Saturday/early Sunday as usual.

_"Take it more seriously," Suoh complains as Reisi's guy on the game screen is flattened by a bulldozer type alien blobby. "Now we gotta start this whole level over."_

_Reisi mumbles an apology but he's not even apologising for screwing up in-game; he's not sorry for that. He's sorry that it happened because he got distracted by Suoh's face. Again._

_He imagines scooting closer to Suoh, not close enough to touch him but close enough to feel it when he moves. Suoh would give him one of his sidelong 'what's up?' looks and turn back to the game. That would be just fine with Reisi; he doesn't want Suoh to look too closely at him, to notice how flustered Reisi gets when Suoh's near him, how loudly his heart beats, how his eyes can't seem to stay away from Suoh for long._

_Reisi can just sit here and stare at Suoh all day, which is more than a little weird. He knows that. He knows that trying to ignore these feelings isn't making them go away. He knows that for Suoh's sake and his own, he ought to start increasing the distance between them. He knows, and it hurts._

_If Suoh weren't his best friend, Reisi could just tell him how he feels. Even if he were rejected, it would be fine -- painful and embarrassing, yes, but that's to be expected. But Suoh might not feel right rejecting him. He might decide to accept his feelings to avoid ruining their friendship, and Reisi doesn't want that. He doesn't want Suoh to do such a thing out of obligation._

_"Munakata!"_

_Reisi blinks. "Yes? What is it?"_

_"I've been calling your name for a minute already. Man, you're really out of it today."_

_"I'm sorry. Maybe I should just watch you play."_

"I can't believe you still remember this old thing," Reisi said.

Mikoto paused the game and looked up. "We never did beat the co-op version."

"Don't look at me like that," Reisi said. "I haven't touched a controller in years. It's been sitting under the TV gathering dust until you showed up."

"The graphics are shit but it's still kind of fun," Mikoto pointed out.

Reisi sighed. "So we'll pack the console up with the rest and you can play as much as you want at home. I'm going to get changed."

He went into his bedroom, where he'd left the change of clothes he'd brought with him that morning -- old jeans he hadn't worn since university and a Tigers shirt that used to be his father's: fine in the shoulders but too short. Reisi peeked in the dresser to see if he'd left a normal-sized shirt behind. The drawers were empty except for the book of his letters to Mikoto in the top one. He'd found it in his uniform pocket the other day and stashed it in the dresser.

Reisi glanced at the bed -- still made. Mikoto must've slept on top of the covers the night Reisi had had the last of his near-meltdowns. He couldn't have made a bed neatly to save his life.

"Where do you want me to-- oh, is this where it was?"

Reisi looked at Mikoto in the doorway, puzzled. "Where what was?"

"The notebook," Mikoto said. "I had it in my room. Thought I lost it."

"Oh," Reisi said. "Sorry."

"I'm just glad it wasn't lost," Mikoto said, staring at Reisi. "Nice shirt, by the way."

Reisi blushed and tugged the shirt down. "Shut up. It was dark when I picked it out."

"No, I like it," Mikoto said.

Reisi placed the notebook on top of the dresser. "Of course you do. Come on, let's get started." 

He walked to the doorway, but Mikoto put both hands on either side of the frame. "I want to kiss you."

Reisi gave him a kiss, quick and soft. "You don't have to announce it every time."

Mikoto grabbed Reisi's ass with both hands. "What about something like this?"

"You give him a hand, he wants the whole arm," Reisi murmured, letting Mikoto draw him closer. They kissed again, slower this time, slow and so deep Reisi forgot what he was supposed to be doing. He turned aside, wishing his dick's sense of timing would go jump off a cliff. 

Mikoto put his arms around Reisi's midsection and tightened them. "What if I want more than the arm?" he whispered.

_Now?_ "I was running up the stairs earlier and got all sweaty," Reisi said. "I should really take a shower."

Mikoto shook his head. "You smell really good."

"There's no lube."

"I don't care; we don't have to go that far."

"Mikoto--"

Mikoto linked his hands at the small of Reisi's back and pressed his forehead against Reisi's. "I want you," he mumbled. "I want you bad." 

Reisi drew a fingertip across Mikoto's lower lip. "Then have me." 

He couldn't quite recall anything he'd ever said that had come so easily. He twisted out of Mikoto's embrace, took one of his hands, and led him to the bed. Reisi sat down on the edge and looked up into Mikoto's face, finding such a thunderstruck expression that he had to suppress a snicker. 

"What's with that look?" he asked, working the buttons of Mikoto's jeans open.

Mikoto lifted Reisi's glasses off and put them on the bedside table. "I didn't think you'd actually agree."

"Oh, was this a gamble? How rude," Reisi said. He slid his thumbs along Mikoto's hips, hooked them underneath the waistband of his underwear, and pushed both jeans and underpants down at once, touching his half-open mouth to the base of Mikoto's cock as it came free, hard and pointed upwards. Reisi curled his hand around the middle of it, knuckles brushing Mikoto's lower belly, and pressed the flat of his tongue against the base, the frantic heart-pulse beneath Mikoto's skin going through him like distant summer thunder.

Mikoto drew in a breath and put his hands on top of Reisi's shoulders, fingertips digging into the shirt, trying to twitch it upwards, failing. Reisi stroked the underside of Mikoto's cock with his thumb, rolling the soft skin over the hard flesh beneath, his tongue still working the base with his mouth sealed tight against it. Mikoto's faltering breaths grew heavier as Reisi eased away a little to lick higher up Mikoto's length, cupping his hand over the head and letting it rub against his palm, so wet it made Reisi want to hurry up and taste it. 

With anyone else, he would have hurried; it was all about quickly seeing things to the preordained conclusion. With Mikoto, Reisi wanted to stretch every second to its limit. He probably could, if Mikoto let him do as he liked, but the way Mikoto's fingers dug into his upper back with every lick told Reisi he wasn't going to get to do as he liked for much longer. And once Mikoto put his hands on Reisi, the waning semblance of control at Reisi's core would be the first thing to go.

"Stop," Mikoto gasped, pushing Reisi back by the shoulders.

"You don't like it?" Reisi asked, falling down onto the bed.

"That's not the problem," Mikoto muttered, staring at Reisi's stomach. He reached out with two fingers and brushed the barely-there trail of fine dark hair that began beneath Reisi's navel, then did it again. "Shit."

"What is it?"

Mikoto fiddled with the top button of Reisi's jeans. "Is this a fucking chastity belt?" he mumbled.

"You're trying to unbutton it as if the jeans were on you," Reisi explained, reaching down to help him.

Mikoto didn't lift his gaze as he opened the zipper, then tugged Reisi's jeans down and down and all the way off, leaned down, dragging Reisi's shirt up his chest, kissed Reisi's mouth. Mikoto's hand wrapped around his cock, and Reisi lost it -- he moaned, dug his hands into Mikoto's hair and lifted his hips off the bed, trying to get closer. Mikoto stumbled forward and fell on top of Reisi with a grunt.

"Did you trip over your pants?" Reisi asked.

"Yes," Mikoto admitted, his voice muffled against the comforter.

"Very smooth."

"Shut up." 

Mikoto let go of him, sat up, and hauled Reisi all the way up onto the bed, settling between his spread legs, then pulling his shirt off. Reisi put his legs on either side of Mikoto and sat up to take off his own shirt. His hair fell into his face, and Mikoto brushed it aside as he leaned in for a kiss, his other hand slipping around Reisi's cock again. Reisi whimpered. Mikoto's hold on him tightened, and he leaned in, pushing Reisi down on the bed, kissing his mouth, his neck, his shoulder; his hand on Reisi's cock steady and sure as if he knew exactly what Reisi liked.

_Though let's face it; when it comes to Mikoto, I like everything. Maybe a little too much._

He put his hands on Mikoto's ass and tugged him closer, kneading, squeezing, dragging him open; Mikoto panted into his ear and lifted his ass a bit for an easier angle, his dick bumping against Reisi's belly; just imagining what Mikoto looked like from the side right now sent fire through his groin, making him gasp. "I want-- I'm close, let me up," he breathed.

Mikoto settled back on folded legs; Reisi sat in front of him, braced against one arm behind him, knees on either side of Mikoto, and took both of their cocks in hand. Mikoto put one hand around Reisi's, squeezing his fingers tighter; his free arm went around Reisi's shoulders. One kiss was all it took to make Reisi start whimpering again, and he became completely useless when Mikoto started to to jerk them both off by making Reisi's hand move. All he could do was raise his hips off the bed to match the pace Mikoto set and let desperate little cries into Mikoto's soft mouth until release shook him like a doll and he spilled it out over their clenched hands, aware only of Mikoto's arm tightening around his shoulders, of the small, choking noise Mikoto made as he came.

After they pulled apart, Mikoto eased him down onto the bed; Reisi flopped onto his side and curled up, his mind sluggish, his breath trapped in the space between his throat and lungs for a few blank moments. He exhaled and opened his eyes. Mikoto lay facing him, grinning that sly little grin that Reisi had thought he'd never see again, the one that said _let's do something naughty, let's see what they say when we do, let's be bad together, come play with me_. Reisi smiled back; there was nothing else he could have done.

Mikoto threw an arm out over Reisi's shoulders and pulled him closer. Reisi lightly pressed his lips against the thin layer of sweat beneath Mikoto's throat and breathed in the scent they made together as his heartbeat wound down.

No grand emotional epiphany, no miraculous end to all his worries about the future. Just a feeling that he was safe, so strong that even Blue Aura -- which was never far from reach, ready to save him at the slightest hint of danger -- went far and deep, leaving him unprotected. He had forgotten it felt like not to carry that invisible shield. But here and now, he didn't need it. 

_Safe._

"I thought you were just teasing when you said you weren't the quiet type," Mikoto said after a few moments.

Reisi tilted his face up to look at him. "Is that so? Do you dislike it?"

"No, I just -- if you didn't, you know. I could've gone for longer," Mikoto said, then sighed in obvious frustration. "That was over too quickly is what I'm trying to say, damn it."

Reisi laughed and ducked out from underneath Mikoto's arm. "It's a little late for performance anxiety from either of us. Besides, we have things to do."

Mikoto made a grab for him. "First let's do it again."

Reisi rolled away and pointed to the clock display on the wall, faint in the darkness gathering outside the window. "There's the mess we just made here. There's the packing. And I've still got work tomorrow." He turned over onto his chest and propped himself up on one elbow. "It's not like this is the last time. Please pass me my glasses."

Mikoto handed them over. "Don't be such a wet blanket. Who knows when the next time will be? Last time at home, you didn't want to because of Auntie."

"Mother leaves for an hour every day after dinner," Reisi pointed out.

Mikoto gave him a look. "We gonna watch the clock every time?"

Reisi glanced away. There was no use pretending like he hadn't thought about this. "The master bedroom's practically in its own wing of the house. And soundproof besides."

*

"Reisi."

Reisi opened his eyes and stared at the teenager fiddling with her phone in the seat across from him. Seat. Train. He must've fallen asleep on the journey home. Suppressing a yawn, he sat up straight.

"Our stop's coming up," Mikoto said, and only then did Reisi realise that he had been using Mikoto's shoulder as a pillow.

"I'm sorry," he said quickly. "I didn't mean to do something so embarrassing."

Mikoto's eyebrow twitched. "Sleeping isn't embarrassing."

"Sleeping on top of a person in full view of the public is," Reisi said with a rueful shake of his head. The train began to glide to a stop, and he got up.

Mikoto -- who was the type to remain seated until the very last possible moment -- caught up with him by the doors just as they opened. "Stop caring so much about what strangers think."

"One of us has to," Reisi shot back.

"You'll get grey hairs."

"I don't want to hear that from somebody two months older."

"One month and a half. You'll still get grey hairs sooner."

After they ascended the escalator and emerged into the street, Mikoto took Reisi's hand and didn't let go until they reached the house.

*

"I feel too awkward about it after all," Reisi said, taking a seat next to Mikoto on the back porch to continue the conversation they'd started while washing up after dinner. "Isn't it obvious why we'd want to use that bedroom?"

Mikoto took a drag of his cigarette. "Yeah, it's obvious. So?"

"So she's my mother. I can't just walk up to her and say, 'by the way, Mother, I want to have a lot of sex with Mikoto so we're going to use the bedroom where I was probably conceived, is that quite all right?'"

Mikoto smirked. "If that's how you're gonna put it to her, maybe I should talk to her about it instead."

"That's not what I meant," Reisi objected. "Even if I don't say such things, they're obvious. It's rude." He hadn't mentioned that Mother had technically already given permission. Taking advantage of that felt like using a loophole.

"Were you really conceived there?" Mikoto asked after a couple of silent smoke exhalations.

Reisi rolled his eyes. "It has never occurred to me to ask."

Mikoto stared at the lit end of his cigarette. "You feel like we're being watched?"

Reisi glanced towards the fence where he'd sensed movement earlier. "For a while now, yeah." He wasn't terribly concerned -- the garden was large enough that anyone on the other side of the fence wouldn't be able to hear anything being said on the porch.

Mikoto peered into his face. "Wanna go check it out?"

"Whoever it is would see us coming."

"Use your air-walking trick," Mikoto advised. "They couldn't outrun that."

Reisi looked at the fence again, doubtful. "I prefer not to use Blue Aura for trivial reasons."

"How boring."

Reisi made a face. "If you hadn't used your power for everything under the sun, your Weismann level wouldn't have reached threshold for another decade at least."

"But then we wouldn't be together," Mikoto said, stubbing his half-finished cigarette out in the ashtray. "I don't miss it. Especially since coming clean to my guys."

"What do you do over there, anyway?" Reisi asked. Mikoto spent mornings helping Chisato around the house, then went downtown and spent the afternoons at HOMRA before meeting Reisi at the station after work. The pattern had started just last week, after Reisi had moved the last of his things out of the apartment.

"I dunno," Mikoto said with a shrug. "Sit around, have a drink or two, shoot the shit. The usual. I'd tell you to stop by, but you're gonna say no anyway."

"I do not like to go where I'm not welcome," Reisi said, now staring at the fence openly. Something had definitely moved behind it just then.

Mikoto leaned sideways against him and placed a hand atop his thigh. "If you can pay for the booze, you're welcome. It's a bar. And you're with me."

Reisi stared at Mikoto's hand on his leg and tried to work out how long it had been since Mother had set off for her walk. All at once, he lost interest in the person behind the fence -- he sensed no danger, in any event. He put his hand on top of Mikoto's. "I think I might've forgotten something at the apartment. We should go check."

"Good idea," Mikoto said, leaning closer to nuzzle Reisi's neck.

They'd gone to check for forgotten items on six out of the last seven days.

Mikoto's teeth closed softly around his earlobe. "Or we could check out the big bedroom right now. Maybe you forgot something there."

Reisi shook his head, freeing his ear. "Mother will return soon."

"We'll be quick," Mikoto breathed, giving Reisi's thigh a squeeze.

"I don't want it quick," Reisi said.

"You say the worst goddamn things at the worst goddamn times," Mikoto complained. "You have to be doing it on purpose. How the fuck am I supposed to wait now?"

Reisi kissed his cheek. "Don't blame me for your overactive imagination. If we hurry, we can catch the seven-thirty train. I'll call Mother from the station and let her know we'll be back later."

They were halfway down the block when Mikoto took a sharp right into a branching alley. Reisi followed him on instinct.

Inside the alley, staring at them like a small animal caught in a car's high beams, stood Yata Misaki.

[to be continued]


	14. Threads

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reisi remembers that one time he tried, Yata has reasonable doubt, Fushimi loiters, Awashima works harder than anyone, Neko climbs a sleeve, and Mikoto misunderstands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Large parts of this chapter were written while experiencing physical nicotine withdrawal, so if anything in here is brain-foggy or weird, I do apologise ;_; It took me a lot longer than usual to write it and look over it, but hopefully it's not terrible. /o\

_Reisi spots him right out of the school doors -- shock of red hair that hasn't seen a comb in a day or two, uniform sweater rumpled, book-bag slung across the opposite shoulder bumping his thigh as he saunters down the walkway to the gate. Reisi doesn't get many chances to see him like this -- when they started high school, they ended up in different classes and have barely exchanged more than a few words since -- so he stares and stares and imagines and thinks about what he will write in the next letter. That's all he's got. That's all he'll ever have._

_He thought it would become easier with time, but it hasn't, and Reisi has decided that even if he pines for Suoh until the end of his days, he doesn't want the friendship to fade away. So here he is, ready to try and get that back. If it isn't too late._

_"What's up?" Reisi offers when Suoh reaches the gates._

_Suoh's eyes narrow and then relax when he recognises Reisi. "Munakata. What are you doing here?"_

_"I was waiting for you. It's been a while since we walked home together, hasn't it?" Reisi straightens up and peers into Suoh's face. "You could come over. Mom and Dad miss you."_ I miss you.

_"I'm supposed to meet Kusanagi at the game centre," Suoh says with a glance across the street. "You know Kusanagi, from my class."_

_"May I tag along?" Reisi asks. "Then we could--"_

_"Kusanagi doesn't really know anything," Suoh interrupts, looking away. "It'd be weird if I brought you."_

I'm too late.

_Reisi has never shown a fake smile to Suoh, and he's not about to start, but it's a near thing. Without his best defense, Reisi concentrates on at least looking only half as miserable as he feels._ It's my own fault, really. I'm the one who started to keep my distance. _"I can't blame you, I guess. Nobody wants to be too friendly with the student council, after all," Reisi says, hoping that at least Suoh will allow him to save face with this._

_"It's not like that," Suoh says. "I just don't wanna get into all the other stuff with him. Like stuff about Mom. You get it, right?"_

_Reisi doesn't, but he nods anyway. If Suoh expects him to understand something, then it's his own fault if he doesn't. Besides, it isn't as though Suoh will bother with an explanation either way. "Sure. Of course."_

_Suoh grins at him, making the lie worth it. "I'll call you later, OK?"_

_"Yeah. Later." Reisi stands there and watches Suoh jaywalk across the street and disappear into the shopping arcade. Suoh has made him feel a lot of things, but this sick, empty, unreasonable jealousy is a first._

_In his mind there is an afterimage of Suoh's smile, the one Reisi convinced himself was his alone, but it isn't, is it? A friendly smile for a friend. Such is the nature of friendship: you can have more than one friend._

_When Suoh calls him that night, Reisi makes an excuse not to talk. It's much simpler to keep his distance, after all._

Mikoto was staring at Yata. It was too flat to be a glare, but the way Yata hunched forward and ducked down a bit, Mikoto might as well have been glaring.

"Well?" Mikoto said, pulling a cigarette pack out of his back pocket and tapping one out.

"I can't accept it," Yata exploded, glowering at Reisi. "You're keeping Mikoto-san drugged or something, admit it!"

Reisi had never thought his eyebrows could rise so high. "I beg your pardon?"

"Saru told me," Yata said to Mikoto. "That you're never coming back to HOMRA because you're going to marry this person. That doesn't make any sense, Mikoto-san."

_Fushimi. I should have known._ Reisi had taken it as a given that Fushimi would figure everything out, but he'd never thought Fushimi would go around _telling_ people. _Who else has he told?_

Yata whirled on Reisi. "Why does everyone I ca-- erm, know -- go over to your side? It isn't right. You must be doing something with your power." He gave Reisi a once-over. "What's with your outfit, anyway? I thought you guys slept in your uniforms."

Reisi forced his dismay at Fushimi behind his best smile. "I believe that might just be Fushimi-kun. Not that I've slept with him; don't worry."

Yata's face, already pink, turned crimson. "Why would I worry--?"

"Yata, that's enough," Mikoto said in a low voice. "The hell's your problem?"

He held his left hand out to Yata, palm down. Yata backed away a step, his eyebrows drawing together in confusion. "Mikoto-san?"

"You seen this scar?" Mikoto asked. It stood out on his knuckle in the greying light of the alley; rough-edged and pale. "I got it when I was about seven, on the day I met this guy." He pointed at Reisi without taking his eyes off Yata. "He saved my life."

"I thought you just went to the same high school," Yata mumbled, looking stunned.

"There's a lot you don't know," Mikoto said. "Try asking."

Yata's face fell. "I'm--"

"I swear I'm going to have you fitted for a collar and put you on a leash!" Awashima yelled from behind Reisi, and he turned around, rather stunned. 

Awashima had a sour-looking Fushimi by the scruff of his neck and was not, in fact, threatening Reisi with physical restraints.

She pushed Fushimi into the alley and rested a hand on her weapon, which hung from a belt attached to a long, flowing cornflower-blue dress instead of her uniform. It was, after all, well past dinner time. "Captain, I found this useless excuse for a soldier lurking around the corner."

"I wasn't lurking, I was loitering," Fushimi muttered in her direction. "How did you even know I was here?" His eyes were on Yata.

"I put a surveillance drone on you weeks ago," Awashima said, pointing overhead, where a miniature-type observer drone hovered near a fourth-floor window. "You were told to stay away from HOMRA, Fushimi. That means no contact, and certainly no following their members around the city!"

"HOMRA doesn't need _you_ to protect us from the likes of him," Yata said to Awashima, who shifted her glare to include him too.

Mikoto took Reisi's hand. "Let's go," he whispered.

"I can't just leave," Reisi tried to protest, but Mikoto was already leading him back out into the street.

"It has nothing to do with you," Mikoto said.

"No? Looked to me like I might have some competition."

Mikoto rolled his eyes. "Yata doesn't want me; he wants to _be_ me. There's a difference."

Reisi harrumphed. "Are you sure he understands the difference?" They had reached the station stairwell and started down.

"Jealous?" Mikoto asked under his breath.

"Hardly," Reisi said, tapping his transit card at an automated entrance. "Last time I checked, you're not into scrawny underage boys."

"That's true," Mikoto said as they climbed the stairs to the platform. "Though Yata turned twenty last month."

Reisi glanced at the digital timetable above the platform. Even with the alley detour, they'd made it in time. "Oh, are you saying you'd like me to be jealous?"

"Maybe a little." Mikoto's voice dropped so low that Reisi had to lean in to hear him. "As payback for responding to that guy last week."

Reisi sighed. "I keep telling you I turned him down; I showed you the mail I sent, didn't I?"

"Just ignore people you don't care about." Mikoto's breath in his ear was warm.

"I long for a life as simple as yours," Reisi countered.

The train pulled in, too crowded to sit, so the two of them stood in the doorway for the duration of trip downtown. Mikoto whispered absolute filth into Reisi's ear, and Reisi bit his lip and shifted his weight and hoped nobody looked his way while plotting his revenge.

*  
SCEPTER4 were setting up surveillance outside a park where a wolf Strain had been chased by a frightened homeless man an hour earlier. Reisi didn't need to be here, strictly speaking, but he'd spotted the police superintendent waiting outside his office earlier and had decided he'd better supervise this wolf rescue. And it was only eight-thirty in the morning.

"I'm terribly sorry I didn't get there before those two knuckleheads disturbed you yesterday, Captain," Awashima said.

Reisi waved her off. "You were off duty, Awashima-kun; you had no obligation to come at all. I apologise for disappearing but Mi-- Suoh and I did have urgent business downtown." 

This was perfectly true: they'd had business in Reisi's old apartment, which was downtown, and it had been pretty fucking urgent as far as Reisi was concerned, especially after the train trip.

"At any rate, I've chained Fushimi to a desk for the next two weeks," Awashima said.

"Figuratively speaking, I presume?"

Awashima lifted an eyebrow. "No, I cuffed him to an interrogation desk and gave him a backlog of situation reports to type up. Will that be a problem?"

Reisi hid a smile. "I suppose not, as long as he can make it out to the little boys' room. I will have to find time to speak to him regarding some of his recent choices, too."

"Once we finish up here, you'll have two hours until your meeting with His Excellency," Awashima said.

"What about tomorrow? I'd like to let Fushimi-kun have a chance to reflect on his actions first." 

"Hey!" yelled one of the officers setting up the aluminium fencing around their vehicles as a kitchen robot careened past him. "This area's off-limits!"

The robot paid him no mind; it headed straight for Reisi. _Pochi?_ No, Pochi didn't have silver racing stripes on its sides. Nor did Pochi carry passengers, and a tiny pink cat rode on top of this robot's head-dome, looking terrified and angry at the same time.

"You were surprisingly difficult to track down, Munakata Reisi," the robot said as it slowed to a stop.

Reisi spotted Yatogami Kuroh -- halted by two officers before he could follow the robot -- glaring at him from the other side of the fence.

"Oh dear," Reisi said, half to himself. "I'm being glared at again. Adolf Weissmann, I presume?"

The little cat hissed.

"Indeed," the robot said. "As expected of the SCEPTER4 chief. I am sorry to appear in front of you in such a state, but there is something you need to know."

"Why _are_ you in such a state? I thought your original body was preserved by His Excellency," Reisi said. It made sense that the Silver King would be able to inject his consciousness into any quasi-sentient being, but of all things, a kitchen robot? He gestured to his officers to let Yatogami through.

"The body was stolen," Weissmann said. "Just last night, actually -- that's what today's meeting is about. The Gold Clan is going to ask SCEPTER4 to head the investigation and assist with the recovery effort. My clan is quite small, you see."

"Stolen? Are the Greens on the move again?" Reisi asked.

"That's what we think," Yatogami said, walking up to them. This time, his glare was for Awashima, who did not look pleased.

"Captain, is it really all right to let other Clansmen into the perimeter?" she asked.

Reisi shrugged. "It they meant to harm the operation, they could have done so from outside the perimeter. What I'd like to know is why you'd crash the site to tell me about today's meeting."

"That's not why we came," Weissmann said, his LED strip flashing. "There is no wolf."

"Yeah, that was me," Yatogami said. "City folk are rather quick to jump to conclusions and overreact."

Reisi blinked at them both. "You," he said. "I do apologise, but I do not understand how anyone might mistake you for a canine."

Yatogami sighed. "I can take the form of a dog. I'd prefer not to demonstrate here as I would drop my weapon and lose all my clothing besides."

"Awashima-kun, who called this in?" Reisi asked. So much for dodging the police superintendent, damn it.

"The Nakatani district cops did," Awashima replied, then listened to her earpiece for a few moments. "They swear it was credible."

"Please tell them to look up 'credible' in the dictionary," Reisi said. "We're rolling out." Then, turning to Weissmann, he added, "Let's discuss specifics at the meeting with His Excellency, if you don't mind; we're quite busy."

"Is our mutual friend doing well?" Weissmann asked. Reisi would have given anything for a facial expression to go with the question. The cat leaped from the robot's head onto Reisi's sleeve and started to claw her way up his arm.

"Just fine," Reisi said, trying his best not to jostle the cat; her claws were _sharp_. "Speaking of which, I should ask you this now while I have the chance -- there's a Strain able to synchronise with the Dresden Slate, yet she cannot see him. She can use her power if he's in front of her, but if he's out of her sight, it's like he doesn't exist. How is this possible?"

The cat reached Reisi's shoulder and sniffed his neck, sneezed, then yowled as Yatogami lifted her off and stuffed her unceremoniously into a duffel bag.

"Ah, yes. Sensor-types won't be able to feel him unless they're looking right at him. I cut him off, you see. As far as the Dresden Slate is concerned, he does not exist."

"Why?"

"The Slate chooses the one most suitable, and he is still the most suitable."

"I see." Reisi had a trillion more questions, but he could not ask them openly any more than Weissmann could answer them openly. "Thank you. See you later, then."

"Who's this person you were talking about?" Yatogami asked as the strange trio moved off. "I didn't know you and the Blue King had friends in common."

"Nobody interesting," Weissmann replied. He was a terrible liar even through a robot's synthesised voice.

*

Reisi ended up working very late that day; by the time he got home, it was dark outside, his mother was asleep, and Pochi called him all sorts of names for having missed dinner. At Mikoto's insistence, he came out on the back porch to see the new motion-sensor-activated fluorescent lights, but they didn't turn on.

"It doesn't work," he said, but before he could turn around, Mikoto was behind him, flush against his back, his arms circling Reisi's waist.

"I turned it off just now." Mikoto laid a kiss on the side of Reisi's neck.

Reisi tipped his head back onto Mikoto's shoulder. "To molest me in the dark?"

Mikoto reached down and gave Reisi's dick -- which was rapidly gaining interest in the proceedings -- a fond squeeze. "I could molest you under soft fluorescent light, but then you'd complain about the neighbours."

If Mikoto kept this up, Reisi would not be able to hold out until they could be alone. He cast about for a conversation topic that might prove distracting enough. "Adolf K. Weissmann's back in town," he said. "He looks like Pochi now."

"Uh-huh." Mikoto was working open the top button of Reisi's uniform shirt.

Reisi sighed. "I'm actually Weissmann; I've stolen Reisi's body because I've secretly got the hots for you."

"Uh-hu-- wait, what?" Mikoto actually took a step away.

"Just checking if you were listening." Reisi turned around and gave him a quick kiss.

Mikoto snorted, returned the kiss. "I guess it's too late to catch a train into town, huh?"

"I'll talk to Mother about the bedroom," Reisi promised. "Doing it on the floor has its charms but I'd like to be able to feel my knees now and again."

Mikoto pulled Reisi in. "You're a King; you don't need to use your knees."

"Hey, I've got to keep in shape if I'm to be an example to my clan. I can't do that with an aching tailbone."

"We could do it like this," Mikoto breathed, working a knee between Reisi's legs. "Right here. No tailbones."

"And give the neighbours a reason to call the police because of suspicious moaning, sure, what an excellent idea," Reisi said, pushing him back a little. "Besides, I'm more worried about _your_ tailbone, after last night."

"Don't talk about that," Mikoto complained. "I'll get excited."

"From what I've observed, you're perpetually excited," Reisi said, his lower belly flooding with desire as the images from last night unfolded, slow-motion, in his mind. "I could sit here and stare at the moon and you'd find something to be excited about."

Mikoto caressed Reisi's lower back. "Aren't you the same?"

"Yeah, but I've got self-discipline." _As much as I wish I didn't._

It would pass, this frenzied, all-encompassing lust that knew little regard for propriety. It always passed; no human body could sustain it for too long. But for all that he complained, Reisi would enjoy it while it lasted.

_I'll enjoy it very much_ , he thought, letting Mikoto lead him to a disused storage room far away from where his mother slept.

_four months later_

"Did you remember to buy the envelopes for Anna's New Year's money?" Reisi asked. He sat on the bed trying to decide between two ties.

Mikoto made a face. "Shit, no, I forgot."

"It's fine, I figured you would." Reisi said. "I bought a bunch, they're on the dresser. Pick one you like."

Mikoto rubbed the back of his neck. "Doesn't it feel weird to you to be giving out New Year's money? I feel like we should still be getting it."

"If you absolutely can't manage without it, I'm sure Mother will oblige you."

"Shut up."

Reisi laughed. This reminded him of how much he'd once made of the differences in how the two of them lived their lives -- Mikoto in the present without a care for anything else, Reisi in the past with designs on the future. But the way they lived now was different from all of that. If Reisi got stuck in the past, Mikoto's voice could bring him back, and if Mikoto forgot that time had a habit of passing, Reisi knew the words to remind him. 

As for the future, it wasn't an end in itself: together, they lived on the verge of tomorrow.

So it only made sense to--

"Reisi?"

Reisi turned around. "Yeah? What?"

"I said Auntie's calling us because Kōhaku is starting soon. What are you spacing out for?" Mikoto took a look at Reisi and narrowed his eyes slightly. "You have that face you always make when you're about to say something really embarrassing."

"Your fly's open," Reisi said, rolling his eyes. "How's that for embarrassing?"

"Liar. You didn't even look at my fly."

"I can tell without looking," Reisi said, deadpan. "The air currents in a room change slightly when a person's fly is open, you know."

Mikoto sat down on the bed -- _their_ bed -- and put an arm around Reisi's shoulders. "You're the most skillful bullshitter in this town."

"And yet you always see through it, so who's the bigger bullshitter?" Reisi said with a smirk. "Anyway, let's do it."

Mikoto gave him a sidelong look. "I thought you wanted to watch Kōhaku."

"No, what I meant was," --Reisi took a breath-- "let's get married."

[to be concluded]


	15. Tomorrow (Epilogue)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reisi remembers a wedding, Mikoto snores, Anna seeks advice, and the story ends.

_"Is this everything?" the ward office clerk asks, flipping through the clear file Reisi handed her._

_"Yes," Reisi says._

_"Very well, please wait while we review the documents."_

_"This not allowed to smoke in government buildings thing blows," Mikoto says as they head to the waiting area. "Let's go outside."_

_Reisi acquiesces, figuring it's not very likely they're going to be called sooner than twenty minutes later, expedited process or no expedited process._

_Outside, it's drizzling. Both people and cars seem like they're moving just a little bit faster, trying to outrun the rain before it gets serious. Reisi and Mikoto find a balcony to shelter under; Mikoto lights up._

_"What if they say no?" he asks after three deep drags._

_"What, the ward? To our marriage?_

_"Yeah._

_"That would mean I screwed up the paperwork," Reisi says. "Which is impossible."_

_"I guess so, huh." Mikoto takes another drag and exhales. The smoke struggles up into the intensifying rain but doesn't make it far._

_"What do you want to do after? I took the rest of the day off._

_Mikoto pitches the half-done cigarette into an ashtray atop a nearby rubbish bin. "I wanna peel you out of that suit."_

_Reisi sighs as he follows Mikoto back inside. "I mean before that. We could go get our photos taken, maybe. Eat something tasty."_

_"What about the zoo?"_

_Reisi adjusts his glasses. "You want to go to the zoo."_

_"Yeah, why not? That way we can tell people we went to the zoo on the day we got married."_

_The clerk is in the waiting area, looking around with a puzzled expression. Reisi tugs on Mikoto's sleeve and steers them both towards her._ That went a lot faster than I thought.

_"Ah, Munakata-sama, your family registry has been updated. Congratulations," she says, blushing faintly._

_Reisi thanks her, collects the registration notification paper, and folds it into his inner pocket._ Married.

_"When she said Munakata, did she mean you or me?" Mikoto asks as they step back out into the rain._

_Reisi rolls his eyes. "Why, did you want to hold on to the paperwork?"_

_That Mikoto take the Munakata name was Chisato's one condition. She wanted to make sure there were no problems with inheritance should the unthinkable happen. Reisi doesn't want to think about the unthinkable. Not today._

_Mikoto lights a smoke and hides it in his palm. "I love you," he says. "Let's go eat something tasty."_

_"What about the zoo?"_

_"Then the zoo."_

_*_

_The reception's only halfway done, and all Reisi can think about is finding a getaway car. He's never had trouble being the centre of attention for official reasons, but the incessant congratulations -- from family members he barely sees, from his own subordinates, from former HOMRA enforcers -- are starting to run together into a great big "goodhealthandprosperity" blur._

_"We've been married for two months already," Mikoto says quietly after Enomoto delivers a halting speech on behalf of his SCEPTER4 division. "Why has everyone been acting like it just happened?"_

_Reisi shrugs. "Most of them don't know when we put the paperwork in, so they're assuming it was today."_

_Reisi insisted on registering in advance because he wanted to make sure the family registry was updated properly before celebrating anything. His father always said that celebrating before something was certain was sure to prevent it._

_"I wonder what Father would say," he murmurs, waving to his mother, who has been unsuccessfully trying to bully the band into playing enka._

_Mikoto finishes his champagne. "About you and me getting married?"_

_"No, about a wedding like this," Reisi explains. They exchanged rings in the hotel's chapel and kissed to applause plus a chorus of_ awww _s and wolf whistles. Munakata Seiji would probably have wanted a traditional Japanese ceremony for his son; after all, that was what he'd had. But traditional ceremonies were very... heterosexual._

_"I don't think he would have wanted to see either of us in bridal getup," Mikoto tells him. "I wouldn't worry about it."_

_Reisi smirks. "You severely underestimate my father's fondness for ceremony. He would've made me become a bride, if only to maintain appearances."_

_"Well, if Mom were here, she'd make me into the bride," Mikoto points out. "Because she'd think it was funny."_

_Reisi laughs. "So if they were both around, we'd still be here, but in drag. Not a bad trade-off."_

_"Wait, isn't that Miwa Ichigen's... whoever he is?" Mikoto asks with a frown in the direction of Yatogami Kuroh, seated at the same table as Awashima._

_"He's here with the Silver King," Reisi says, pointing to Weissmann, who was restored to his original body just a few weeks ago._

_"So that's what he looked like," Mikoto says, staring fixedly in Weissmann's direction. "Should I go say hi?"_

_"Do that at the end when we're sending the guests off," Reisi replies, somewhat alarmed. "If you leave my side, I'll be swarmed by relatives wanting me to meet their kids."_

_"For the adoption thing?" Mikoto asks as a silent waiter tops up his champagne glass. "We have to decide on that now?"_

_"No, but they'll all want to start making the arrangements for us to meet the children now. With you next to me, they don't want to intrude, since you just became part of the family and they don't know you yet. The minute you leave, they'll be all over me._

_"What if I have to take a piss?"_

_"I'll accompany you." Reisi sees Mikoto open his mouth and continues, very sweetly: "Say a word about holding it for you while you relieve yourself and I will pour this champagne down your back."_

_"Do you promise to lick it off later?" Mikoto puts a hand on Reisi's leg under the table and moves it up, unseen beneath the floor-length tablecloth. Reisi's desire for a getaway car quadruples._

Reisi peered through half-closed eyes at Mikoto, who lay on his stomach with his face mashed sideways into his pillow. Snoring.

The date in their family registry -- the rainy June Tuesday they'd gone to the ward office with all the paperwork -- was four years ago today. Yet Reisi was still waiting not to be surprised every time he woke and found Mikoto sleeping next to him and thought _that's my husband._

There hadn't yet been a day when Mikoto was the first to wake. When Reisi's work alarm went off, Mikoto would wake up long enough to mumble a complaint and then go right back to sleep. But today was Saturday, which had become a full day off for Reisi on account of his married status, and no alarm had gone off today.

Which probably meant it was eight o'clock or thereabouts. Reisi was physically incapable of sleeping longer than eight hours, and he'd fallen asleep watching a cheesy American crime drama right around midnight last night. They'd got rid of the wall-display clock a few years ago; Mikoto claimed it stressed him out. He didn't like knowing what time it was.

Reisi stuck his elbow into Mikoto's ribs. The snoring stopped.

Mikoto peered up at Reisi. "Hmm?"

"Quit making so much noise so early in the morning," Reisi told him. "I could've slept another ten minutes, at least."

"I'm gonna pretend you didn't just complain about being woken up too early," Mikoto said, sitting up halfway and giving Reisi an annoyingly superior look. "You do it to me every day."

Reisi smirked. "And you complain about it every day, so why shouldn't I?"

"Good point." Mikoto yawned, covering his mouth with his forearm, then rubbed his eyes with his fists. "Want to smoke?"

"At least brush your teeth first," Reisi said with a shake of his head.

"What's the point? If I brush my teeth and then smoke, it's like wasting the brushing. Better to smoke and then brush after. Double duty."

"That's the same logic you used to avoid brushing your teeth before breakfast when we were kids," Reisi pointed out.

"Because it works," Mikoto said. He walked over to the dresser, pulled out a pair of Reisi's old track pants, tugged them on.

"No, it doesn't," Reisi said, watching very carefully as Mikoto's chest and torso disappeared underneath a baggy black t-shirt with a bloody-clawed pink bear on it -- a birthday gift from Anna that Mikoto only wore indoors. "It's not a waste of time to brush your teeth if you've been eating or smoking or whatever."

Mikoto took a cigarette out of the pack on the dresser, stuck it in the corner of his mouth, and half-turned. "What about a blow job?"

"Probably a good idea to brush your teeth after one," Reisi said. "Or at least swish some baking soda."

"No, I mean, do you want one?"

Reisi rolled his eyes. "Is that a real question?"

Mikoto slid the back porch door open, admitting the busy chatter of birds and a frisson of damp air that made the dust dance. "Just wait there until I'm done with my smoke and you'll find out."

A knock came at the bedroom door. "You guys decent?"

Reisi covered his lap with a bunched bit of duvet. "Yes, please come in."

Anna, dressed in unseasonable flannel pyjamas, padded inside and clambered up onto the foot of the bed, folding her legs underneath herself. "I stayed the night," she announced.

Reisi reached for his glasses and put them on. "I can see that. Is everything all right at home?"

"More or less," Anna mumbled.

She wasn't _exactly_ going through a typical mutinous teenager stage -- Anna had grown up too fast too soon -- but sometimes she came close. Last week she'd had all of her hair cut off, insisting that it got in the way of her archery practice. Reisi could've understood it if she played softball and had to run around a lot, but he couldn't quite see why she wouldn't have compromised with a ponytail. Then again, in Reisi's opinion -- which he had carefully concealed from Kushina Honami -- a person's body belonged to that person only, so if Anna wanted to cut her hair or get the latest death metal anthem tattooed on her back, that was her prerogative.

"I see," he said, noncommittal.

"No, really," Anna said, reaching for a phantom strand of hair to twirl and then letting her hand fall gracefully into her lap as though that had been her intention all along. She'd been doing that a lot since having it cut. "Granny wouldn't let me go home by myself, not even in a cab, and you guys were already sleeping."

"I wasn't arguing with you," Reisi said with a smile. "It's too early in the morning for that. Is Mother awake yet, by the way?"

Anna shook her head. "I brought her outdoor wheelchair to her bedroom but she was still asleep. Pochi said he'll come fetch one of us when she wakes up."

"Ah, thanks," Reisi said, sitting up. "Well, I'd better see about breakfast, since you're here--"

"Rei-san, there's a boy that I like. What do I do?"

Reisi sagged down a bit. "Are you sure I'm the best person to ask that question?"

"You're the only responsible adult I know besides Granny and Aunt Honami," Anna explained. "Granny's sleeping, and I'm not speaking to Aunt right now."

Reisi chuckled. "I can't decide if that's a compliment or not. Have you told this boy how you feel?"

Anna pursed her lips. "No, but I know he likes me too." She circled her index finger in the air above her temple: a shorthand for her power. "That's what makes it kind of awkward."

"Hmm, yes, I can see how that would be difficult," Reisi said. "I'm sure he would be very happy to hear your confession, but knowing that in advance... hmm."

"And what if he's the sort who can't be honest about his feelings?"

"Kill him," Mikoto called from the garden. "If he really loves you, he'll find a way to come back to you."

Reisi sighed heavily.

"See, this is why I don't ask you about these things," Anna said to Mikoto. "You're not a responsible adult."

"I'm married to a responsible adult," Mikoto said, walking back inside. "That counts. Also, speaking from experience."

"You and I are practically poster children for how not to initiate a relationship," Reisi said as Mikoto sat down on the edge of the bed. "Hardly in the best position to dispense advice."

Mikoto lay back, his head landing softly atop the blanket gathered in Reisi's lap.

Pochi rolled into the room. "Mistress has awakened from her slumber. Pochi will prepare a feast!"

"Ah, thanks," Anna said, bounding off the bed. "I'll ask Granny since you guys are hopeless," she added from the doorway and ran off after Pochi.

"Smart girl," Mikoto observed.

"Indeed." Reisi brushed Mikoto's hair away from his forehead.

"Still interested in that blow job?"

"Brush your teeth first. Your breath is so radioactive they can probably smell it in space."

[end]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all she wrote! Thank you so much to everyone who has read along and left kudos and comments! <3


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